February drowning brings Cook County cold-related death total to 33 this season

The death of a 63-year-old man who drowned in Lake Michigan near Belmont Harbor in February was partially cold-related, investigators have found.

Demetrius Yancy, 63, was found in the water at 3:34 p.m. Feb. 9 near the 3000 block of North Lake Shore Drive, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was pulled from the water and pronounced dead at the scene.

An autopsy determined that Yancy, who lived in the Pilsen neighborhood on the South Side, died of drowning, according to the medical examiner’s office. Hypothermia due to environmental cold exposure was listed as a secondary cause.

The ruling on Yancy’s cause of death was among several released by the medical examiner’s office Monday, bringing Cook County’s number of cold-related deaths since Oct. 23, 2017, up to 33, according to records maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

This is the highest total the county has seen since the period of time between Oct. 25, 2013 and April 5, 2014, during which 31 people died of causes that were at least partially cold-related, according to Sun-Times records.