Minn. Firefighters Help Rescue Boy Scout Troop

June 14--Three St. Paul firefighters took part in a helicopter rescue of a Boy Scout canoe party that capsized Thursday in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near Ely.

The rescue was the result of a partnership between the St. Paul Fire Department and the Minnesota State Patrol called the Minnesota Air Rescue Team. The team was formed a few years ago to put together the firefighters' technical rope rescue expertise with State Patrol helicopters and the pilots. The team, based in St. Paul, can respond to emergencies statewide.

Rescue help was needed about 4 p.m. Thursday when three adults and five children in two canoes had capsized in rough water on Basswood Lake near the Canadian border. A State Patrol Bell 407 helicopter headed north from the St. Paul Downtown Airport with three St. Paul firefighters aboard.

About two hours later, after refueling at Ely, the helicopter arrived at the lake. Two adult canoists had gotten to a wooded area on the shore, but the water was so rough that they couldn't be rescued by a DNR boat or a U.S. Forest Service de Havilland Beaver float plane that had also responded, according to the helicopter pilot, trooper Dave Willar.

So while Willar kept the helicopter in position in winds gusting up to 35 mph, two firefighters were lowered on 100-foot ropes into the wooded area where the canoists were waiting.

Willar said the men had a strobe light to signal their position.

"One thing that made it extremely easy for us was the strobe," Willar said.

With the help of the firefighters, the helicopter lifted the canoists one at a time on the rope and carried them to the lee side of an island less than a quarter-mile away where the Beaver plane was located. The plane, which had already flown several canoists to a hospital, flew those two men out of the area.

According to the Lake County Sheriff's Office, all eight in the canoeing group were rescued.

Lake County Sheriff Carey Johnson said the canoists were at the end of a five-day trip when they encountered rough weather and their boats got swamped in four-foot waves. The group, three adults and five teenagers from Troop 990 of West Chester, Ohio, got separated, but some members contacted a nearby Boy Scout camp with a radio they had brought, Johnson said.

The camp called Ontario Provincial Police because the party had crossed into Canadian waters, and Canadian officials contacted Lake County.

In addition to the State Patrol helicopter and the Forest Service float plane, a total of five boats from the DNR, the Forest Service, Lake County and St. Louis County were involved in the rescue, Johnson said.

Johnson said the canoists played a role in their own rescue. Besides having a strobe light and a radio where cellphone service is doubtful, "all eight of the individuals had life jackets on. That was huge," Johnson said.

He said air temperatures were in the mid-40s, and one canoist had been in the water for 90 minutes. But none of the canoists had to be hospitalized.

The partnership between the State Patrol and the St. Paul Fire Department has been used three times before to rescue people. In the May 22, 2013, landslide on the river bluffs in St. Paul's Lilydale Regional Park that killed two children, a State Patrol helicopter with a firefighter rescuer on a rope helped carry an injured child to safety.

The next day the team rescued a man who fell 80 feet from a Mississippi River bluff in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood. The team also rescued a woman who fell off a river bluff in Red Wing last summer.

St. Paul Fire Marshal Steve Zaccard said 20 of the city's firefighters are trained to work on the air rescue team. He said the three firefighters involved in Thursday's rescue were Capt. Alan Gabriele and firefighters Jim Engen and Ben Schenck.

This report includes information from WXIX-TV, Cleveland. Richard Chin can be reached at 651-228-5560. Follow him at twitter.com/RRChin.

Copyright 2014 - Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.