The Chicago Tribune has a special report on those who died because of the Chicago blizzard
From young to old - Lives snatched away by the Chicago blizzard - How some of the victims lived and died
In their loved ones' eyes, they were a dedicated church employee, a 17-year-old computer whiz, a devoted husband and a man who worked to keep our roads clear.
The Blizzard of 2011 stole them away, playing a role in the deaths of at least a dozen people in the region who were trying to cope with the punishing storm. Many were shoveling their driveways or digging out their cars; others simply wanted to get home.
In several cases, rescue workers made heroic attempts to save their lives. Chicago police dived into Lake Michigan's icy waters for one man, while paramedics ran through blinding snow in Lyons to reach another. In Will County, firefighters used a snowmobile and a sled to bring an ailing security guard to an ambulance that was stuck in the snow.
As the public is learning the details of how some of them died, their friends and families find comfort in how they lived.
Edward "Mike" Jeans
At about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Edward Jeans cranked up his snowblower again to try to keep up with the fierce blizzard.
His wife, Debra, who was helping him, went back into their Lyons home to give her elderly father medicine and to check on Laci, their dog.
She looked out a window and saw her husband lying on his back in the snow.
"I ran to him, grabbed his arms and he was limp," Debra Liska-Jeans said through tears. "When I looked at his face, I knew he was gone and I just started screaming."
Neighbors called 911 and tried to resuscitate Jeans. The road was impassable, but somehow an emergency crew got there. Liska-Jeans said she watched as five paramedics hauling equipment ran through the blinding snow toward her home. Two fell but quickly got up and kept running.
They carried Jeans, 58, into the foyer and tried to revive him before taking him to a hospital. He died of a massive heart attack, his wife said.
"They got to him as quick as they could," she said of the paramedics. "They're real heroes."
Born at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Christmas Eve 1952, Edward Jeans grew up in Lemont and owned his own auto repair shop. He worked at the Tool Store Go-Kart Shop along Harlem Avenue in Forest View before his death, his wife said.
He doted on their sable-colored Pekingese.
"She's sitting at the window now waiting for him to come home from work, and it breaks my heart," Liska-Jeans said.
Peter M. Davis
A friend believes Peter M. Davis was intent on checking out Lake Michigan's walloping waves at the height of Tuesday night's blizzard.
How Davis ended up in the water at Diversey Harbor could well remain a mystery, but gale-force winds were blowing at up to 70 miles an hour.
Alerted by a distress call, police divers had to wait several hours before venturing into the lake because of the blowing snow and uncertainty over where to search. After spotting a hat by a dock, they entered the water, found a body and removed a lifeless Davis. He had died of cold exposure and drowning, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
The Harvard Law School graduate lived about five blocks from the harbor in a Lincoln Park apartment building. "Peter went to look at the waves," Davis' legal secretary, Karen Johnson, said one of Davis' friends told her.
The 60-year-old lawyer had worked for DraftFCB, a downtown advertising company, for more than 15 years. Howard Draft, company chairman, described Davis as "scary brilliant" and said he could often be seen standing outside the building smoking a cigarette and reading the Wall Street Journal.
Davis loved restaurants and was a huge White Sox fan who shared his season tickets with friends.
"He'd be just as comfortable sitting down and having a drink with a busboy as he would with the owner of a restaurant," Johnson said.
Pheao Sam
Hard work was a mantra for Pheao Sam, who fled his native Cambodia in the throes of the Vietnam War.
He wasn't about to let a blizzard keep him from showing up on time at Dreisilker Electric Motors in Glen Ellyn, where he had spent 30 years, rising from janitor to a mechanic, said his son, Dara Sam.
So after the storm hit, Pheao Sam was digging his car out of a 4-foot-high snowdrift outside his home in Carol Stream.
"He was just trying to get it out so it would be OK for the next day," his son said.
After shoveling, Pheao Sam walked inside his house and started complaining of chest pains. He was taken to Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 6 p.m., according to the DuPage County coroner's office. Sam, 62, had never had heart problems before, his son said.
After fleeing his homeland in 1979, Sam stayed in a refugee camp where he met his wife, who was fleeing with four kids of her own. They arrived in Carol Stream after being sponsored by Wheaton Bible Church.
Sam learned as much English as he could from his fellow employees.
"'Work hard now, play later' was his motto," his son said. "He lectured us all the time: 'Just work hard and if any complications come your way, deal with it and overcome it the best you can.'"
Susan Smith
His phone service cut off by the storm and his wife still not home from work from the night before, a panicked Rick Smith started shoveling early Wednesday morning in an effort to clear a path to drive out to search for her.
But every inch of progress was quickly erased by more snow at the Smith home between Mundelein and Long Grove.
Susan Smith, 57, worked until late Tuesday night at Jewel-Osco in Lake Zurich, but she also was devoted to her second job as office manager at her church, Alpine Chapel in Lake Zurich.
It would not be out of character for her mother to drive through a historic blizzard in the middle of the night to put church matters in order, her daughter, Rachel Smith, said.
Rachel, 28, arrived with her boyfriend about 3 p.m. Wednesday, anxious because her mother had not responded to text messages and calls.
"Something was definitely wrong," she said.
They drove to the church office, where she spotted her mother's snow-covered Honda Pilot SUV. Her stomach dropped and panic surged through her as she opened the door.
"I saw her, and I just started screaming," she said.
An autopsy found Smith died of a heart attack, and that her diabetes likely contributed to her death, said Lake County Coroner Richard Keller. Her family believes the stress of the blizzard may have aggravated her diabetes, which she usually kept under control.
Alpine's lead pastor, the Rev. Ronn Read, said he and church leaders talked after her death about filling her roles and "stopped at about 150 things that she did directly."
On Wednesday, police asked Read why Susan would have been at the office in the middle of the night in a raging snowstorm. If the officers had known her, Read said, they wouldn't have had to ask.
"The reason she would have been there is that that was Sue."
Matthew Tayler
With a massive blizzard rolling in, Deborah Tayler didn't like the idea of her teenage son getting behind the wheel.
But his cat had chewed up the wires on his cell phone charger, and knowing he might be snowed in for a few days, Matthew Tayler wanted a repair kit.
"He said, 'Oh, Mommy, you're being silly,'" recalled Deborah Tayler, of DeMotte, Ind., about 65 miles southeast of Chicago.
Matthew left home around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and headed for a hardware store about a mile away. He was gone too long, his mother thought, and he wasn't answering his phone.
"I knew something was wrong, so I went out looking for him," she said.
She searched for Matthew with no luck. Then a police officer called her cell phone. Matthew had been in an accident, and she needed to get to St. Anthony's Hospital in Crown Point.
Authorities said they believe that Matthew had picked up a 43-year-old man on the side of the road. They both were killed when a semitrailer slammed into the driver's side of his 1991 Ford Escort. Police said weather appeared to be a factor.
Authorities did not release the name of the passenger. As of Friday, they had not located his family.
Matthew, 17, was a junior at North Newton Junior-Senior High School, where he was a computer whiz and played drums.
"He gave his all in everything he did," said Matthew's band teacher, Craig Redlin.
Vincent Cerrentano
The call came in to the Manhattan Fire Protection District at 10:39 p.m. Tuesday.
Vincent Cerrentano, 71, a security guard at a ComEd facility in rural Manhattan, was apparently suffering a heart attack.
An ambulance was on its way, but with zero visibility and giant snowdrifts, it got stuck after 15 minutes, two miles from Cerrentano, Lt. Ed Ludwig said.
The department dispatched a firetruck. The crew reached the ComEd facility but had to hike 20 minutes down a long, impassable driveway and cut open a gate before they found Cerrentano slumped over the steering wheel in his vehicle.
Cerrentano, of Monee, had no pulse. Firefighters took him out of the car and used his car door to shield them from wind and snow as they performed CPR for about 45 minutes.
Then they strapped him to a sled attached to a snowmobile and drove him to the ambulance. The crew there tried to revive Cerrentano while two snowplows dug out the ambulance, Ludwig said.
Cerrentano arrived at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet more than two hours after his supervisor called for help. He was pronounced dead at 1:21 a.m. Wednesday.
Ludwig said the crews' performance was "outstanding."
"They did absolutely everything they could do," he said.
Cerrentano was a retired Chicago police homicide detective who enjoyed golf and often brought ribs and hot peppers to work, colleagues said.
"It's a very unhappy day for us," said Art Hannus, president of a contract security firm where Cerrentano worked.
Charles "Chuck" Hubbard
Marty Vondra remembered how Charles Hubbard helped him make the most important decision of his life.
"He talked me into marrying my wife," said Vondra.
Hubbard, 69, a former Marine who was a walking encyclopedia on the technical aspects of precision welding, died Wednesday of a heart attack while shoveling snow at his home in Downers Grove.
As chairman of the Chicago chapter of the American Welding Society, Hubbard frequently played the role of elder statesman, Vondra said. He had years of wisdom and "was such a mellow guy he had the knack of easing tension."
Hubbard was a longtime salesman with the Lincoln Electric Co.
His friend Craig Tichelar remembered how Hubbard came through when a missionary group was trying to find a diesel-powered generator to help build homes in an African village. He came through again when Tichelar, a welder who works in the metal shop at Brookfield Zoo, needed a special cutting device.
"You don't forget things like that," Tichelar said.
Most of all, Hubbard loved his family and enjoyed watching his grandkids grow up.
"If we weren't talking about welding, he'd be talking about … his family," Tichelar said.
Gregory Myers
A Lake County sheriff's deputy who was checking for stranded motorists found Gregory Myers, 48, in his car early Wednesday, the motor running as the car idled on the side of a Grayslake road. He was pronounced dead in his vehicle.
The Grayslake resident apparently died because of pre-existing heart disease, said Lake County Coroner Richard Keller, who is waiting for results of a carbon monoxide test to rule out fumes as the cause of death.
William "P.T." Scardamaglia
William "P.T." Scardamaglia was near the end of a grueling shift plowing Kane County's snow-covered roads Wednesday when he suffered a fatal attack.
Rescuers rushed the 50-year-old St. Charles Township man to Delnor Hospital in Geneva, where he was pronounced dead.
Kane County Chairman Karen McConnaughay said Scardamaglia was a 14-year employee of the Highway Department. She said he was refilling his truck with salt when he collapsed. His family did not return Tribune phone calls, but one of his three sons wrote on Facebook that his father died of an "instant heart attack."
John Sobota
John Sobota's neighbors knew him well. Residents of the Timberlane Apartments in Mount Prospect would lean out their doors and chat with him while he was walking his dog or watch the retiree feed squirrels in the courtyard.
Neighbors say Sobota was especially popular with children in the complex. He would often play catch with them or drive remote-controlled cars in front of the building.
The 62-year-old spent all day Wednesday directing cars out of the complex's parking lot where they were buried under snow.
Neighbor Jimmy Dorado described the scene as more of a party than a chore.
"He was just being there for everybody, doing whatever he could do," Dorado said.
Afterward, Sobota and his wife, Pamela, decided to go out. He went to warm up the car but never returned, according to police. His wife found him unresponsive in the driver's seat. Police believe he died of natural causes.
