ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. -- An Illinois single mother drowned Tuesday while helping save three children in a northern Wisconsin lake.
Karen Wessel, 47, of Arlington Heights, was vacationing this week on Star Lake near the Wisconsin town of Plum Lake with her son, sister, a friend and two other children.
Emergency officials said the three kids were swimming back from a sand bar across a small channel when they became very tired and began to struggle. Wessel and the two other women jumped into the water to save them.
The children and two of the women made it back safely. But after Wessel pushed the last child above the surface of the lake, she went under.
Rescue crews were able to pull Wessel out of the lake, but she died at the hospital.
"It's important to know that she saved a little boy's life that's going to grow up and live a full life, and she is a hero," said Janice Potocki, Wessel's sister. "People need to know that there are heroes."
The Daily Herald reports Wessel was familiar with Star Lake and her family had a vacation home near the water.
Janice Potocki and Karen Wessel lived next door to one another. Potocki said her sister spent her life giving.
"It was everything about every other person in the universe except herself," Potocki said. "I just keep expecting that to happen... I keep expecting that when I open my refrigerator there will be dinner - because she would just leave me a little plate in case I was hungry."
Wessel was a secretary at a Chicago law firm. She's survived by her 9-year-old son, Michael, and 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.
A friend of the family has set up a scholarship fund at the Village Bank of Arlington Heights to help support him and the family.