18-Year-Old Dies After Car Lands In Lake

CHICAGOLAND (CBS)-- An 18-year-old man drowned early Friday morning after the car he was driving sank into Lake Miltmore near Lake Villa.

Lake County Coroner Artis Yancey said Nicholas Bonilla, 18, whose last known address was in the 100 block of S. Beck Road, Lindenhurst, was pronounced dead at 5 a.m. Friday at Advocate Condell Medical Center, Libertyville.

Bonilla would have turned 19 in December. He was driving his car eastbound shortly before 2 a.m., according to Lake County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Sara Balmes, when he crossed over Nathan Hale Drive and drove approximately 200 feet through a yard, striking a boat lift and landing upside down about 50 feet into Lake Miltmore.

An autopsy "revealed no significant trauma to the body from the motor vehicle accident," Yancey said. "All indications were it was a drowning death."

A passenger, who has not been identified, was able to escape the vehicle and make it shore.

"Responding deputies later learned the driver was trapped inside the vehicle," said Balmes in a statement issued Friday. Four Lake County Sheriff's deputies entered the water in a rescue attempt. The Lake Villa Dive Team arrived and "eventually removed the driver from the vehicle."

The passenger was also transported to Condell. Information on his condition was not immediately available. All four deputies were treated at the scene by the Lake Villa Rescue Squad and released.

The accident is still under investigation, according to Balmes.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2012. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)