Kankakee River Rescue! Well Done, Derek Mullady and the Mullady Family!

First "Ed Mullady's Kankakee River Fisherman's Atlas" for Illinois published. Mullady helps organize "Save Our Streams" to fight building two new dams along the Kankakee River. Campaigned against building a reservoir lake near Wilmington.

The Mullady Family has watched over the Kankakee River for as long as I can remember.
River Scouts Pat and Matt Mullady were pals of my late wife Mary and dedicated naturalists like father, Mr. Ed Mullady. I fished the Kankakee River for fourteen years and often with their guidance and sound criticism.

Their father Ed Mullady is the dominant sportsman/activist/conservationist and Father of the Kankakee waterways for all of his life. He is the publisher of Kankakee River Report. Ed Mullady's sons and grandsons have protected the beauty and the majesty of what most argue to be the cleanest river in Illinois. The Mullady family dedicated their spirits to the waters of the Kankakee. It is a generational vocation.

Today, I read that Derek Mullady heroically saved the life of a man who crashed his plane into the Kankakee River.

Mullady and four friends rode a harbor boat out to the overturned plane and dragged it to shallow water where they flipped it over and cut the victim out of the cockpit.

"We cut him loose and...he coughed up blood and started breathing," Mullady said.

Mullady said the victim, a man who appeared to be in his 40s, was underwater for about six minutes before being rescued. The unidentified pilot was taken to an area hospital, where he was listed in fair condition, Kankakee County Sheriff's police spokesman Tim McCabe said.

Officials remained on the scene and were investigating, McCabe said.

The Federal Aviation Administration was notified but further details were unavailable, said agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

Mullady downplayed any notion that he was a hero. "I don't know if I'd say that," Mullady said. "Just at the right place at the right time, I guess."

--William Lee

I can safely say that the only bad thing to ever come out of Kankakee was the nine inch Alligator Gar that I caught near Custer Park and a few Mud Puppies.