A body was found in the North shore channel under Dempster Street on Sept. 5. The deceased was identified as a 45-year-old Roland D. Gross of Chicago, IL, and the cause of death was ruled accidental drowning by the coroner, according to Illinois State Police (ISP). A boat with Niles West students aboard discovered the body during rowing practice.

Four girls from Niles West were on the local crew team, coached by Josh Platt. Junior Lucy Clarke was in the boat with Platt during their 5 a.m practice. The river was dark and the team was rowing north. They first passed the head of the dead body thinking it was a dead duck or rock. Once they traveled back south, the sun was up and they saw it was a body.

“The team was in the 8-person boat and saw it, and called over Josh and I because we were in a separate boat. When we went over and he was like oh it’s a dead body and I saw it and closed my eyes and so he had to like call the police and then afterwards he took me back to the shore and he went back an waited,” Clarke said.

When they found the body there was a sense of confusion and fear among the team. Platt had to act quickly once he came up on the body.

“When you come upon a person floating in the water, you have no idea how long they’d been there or what led to the problem.  Next, I needed to get the rowers out of the immediate area so they didn’t have to be exposed to the situation any further.  They were instructed to immediately start rowing back to the boathouse and proceed as normal.  The less they had to see, the better,” Platt said.

After the situation the team held a meeting to talk about the experience.

“During our discussion, my first goal was to inform the team of what transpired once they left the scene. Without getting into too much detail, I let them know what happened, what I did, and what I knew. For the most part, everybody was ready to just move on and get back on the water,” Platt said.

The girls got back on the water a week later, and according to Clarke she was a little uneasy to be there.

The ISP is continuing to investigate.

“ISP’s investigation is still open and there is no additional information to share at this time,” a spokesperson for the ISP said.