Woman Rescues 3 Men After Boat Capsizes Near Montrose Harbor

Updated 5/12/11 6:41 a.m.

CHICAGO (CBS) - A determined wife's intuition saved her husband and his friends, when their boat capsized on Lake Michigan overnight.

Mary Kovats was worried that her husband, Peter, and his two friends were out on the lake as Wednesday evening's storm hit. When she talked with him by telephone, he said they were just about in and they'd be fine. But they did not come ashore.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780's Steve Miller reports

Kovats set out with friends at from the Corinthian Yacht Club at Montrose harbor to find them. They found the boat overturned and the three men in the water.

"We had to do what we had to do," Kovats told Newsradio 780's Steve Miller. "They had an accident – that was it."

Kovats said her hospitalized husband was awake Thursday and expected to recover. The other two men are OK, she said.

The police Marine Unit was called to the scene at 9:10 p.m. Thursday, and Kovats was making the rescues when police and fire crews were en route, Chicago Fire Department Spokesman Larry Langford said.

After rescuing the men, the woman then sped the boat to shore, where paramedics wrapped the husband in a thermal blanket because he was "seriously cold," Langford said.

Langford says he is not sure how long the men were in the water, but they were about a half mile off shore. Even though it's warm outside, Langford says it takes weeks for the water to catch up.

"The water is still very winter-like and still very cold." said Langford.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780's Lisa Fielding reports

He said another 30 minutes in the water and the men might have died.