Park ranger dies responding to call for help when rescue boat capsizes on lake

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A park ranger died Sunday at a Minnesota national park when his rescue boat capsized on a lake while helping three family members stranded in high winds and rough waters, officials said.

The ranger, who has yet to be publicly identified, responded late Sunday morning to a call about a distressed civilian vessel on Namakan Lake at Voyageurs National Park, the National Park Service (NPS) said.

The ranger’s boat capsized as it towed the civilian vessel on the lake. The ranger and three civilians who were aboard the NPS boat were all thrown into the water, officials said.

While the three civilians swam to safety, the ranger did not resurface.

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Namakan Lake is 16 miles long and 25,130 acres in size, according to the NPS website. (Emily Kurmis / NPS)

Rangers, along with U.S. Border Patrol, St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, and Kabetogama Fire Department, performed a three-hour search and recovered the missing ranger’s body from the lake at 3:20 p.m., NPS said.

Lashing winds had caused waves between five and six feet high at the time the ranger was helping the family, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. 

Voyageurs National Park spans 218,000 acres of lakes, forests, and streams in northern Minnesota, according to NPS. (NPS)

St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay told the paper that one of the rangers who responded said he had never seen wind conditions as “wild.”

Ramsay said the deceased ranger was experienced and close to retirement.

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“He was just all about helping others and that’s what he died doing was helping others,” Ramsay told the Star Tribune. “He had a servant’s heart by all accounts.”

The ranger had yet to be publicly identified as of Monday morning. (National Park Service)

The ranger is the second to die at a national park in a matter of months.

In June, 78-year-old Park Ranger Tom Lorig died in Utah after suffering injuries in a fall while working with visitors at Bryce Canyon National Park’s annual Astronomy Festival.

The incident at Voyageurs National Park remains under investigation.

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Voyageurs National Park is located in northern Minnesota, with Namakan Lake sitting near the Canadian border.