ECHO LAKE—Two unprepared middle-aged grouse hunters avoided a potentially deadly night lost in the woods thanks to the quick action of rescuers. Brothers David Grommersch, 63, of Delano, and Daniel Grommersch, 59, of Huntington Beach, Calif., lost their way while on the Echo Lake hunter walking trail with their two dogs on Friday, Dec. 2.

Another member of the hunting party the brothers were with called 911 just after 6 p.m., alerting authorities of the pair’s failure to emerge from the woods after dark. The two hunters were lightly dressed, and with snow on the ground and temperatures expected to dip into the teens, they were ill-equipped to spend a night in the woods.

A sizable crew of rescuers, from the St. Louis County Volunteer Rescue Squad, Crane Lake and Buyck Fire Departments, the Minnesota DNR, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Border Patrol, all responded to the scene to aid in the search.

As searchers began combing trails on foot, as well as with snowmobiles, ATVs and the rescue squad’s marshmaster, the reporting party received a text indicating that the two men had climbed into a cloth-covered deer stand with their two dogs. They were seeking whatever protection it could provide from the cold and from the sleet and snow that had begun to fall. Both men reported being very cold, wet, and exhausted.

The rescuers were soon able to determine that the two men had ventured far into the woods. From tracks in the snow, they set their last known location as more than two and half miles from the road, which meant any rescue had to be completed by off-road vehicle. At that point, the rescue squad released the foot-based crews from the local fire departments. Up to that point, none of the rescuers had made any voice contact with the lost hunters.

But their luck soon changed when the reporting party made brief cell phone contact with the lost hunters. In coordination with the searchers, he asked the hunters to fire two shots. A Forest Service rescuer on snowmobile reported hearing the shots, across a large beaver pond that had blocked his progress given the limited ice. Rescue squad personnel, with the tracked marshmaster, were able to make their way towards the hunters and their dogs, whose barking helped rescuers hone in on their location.

When the rescuers finally arrived, about 11:15 that night, they found both men in tough condition. A report from the scene described the men’s feet as soaked and frozen “like solid blocks of ice.” The rescuers provided first aid, both to the men and their dogs and got them evacuated from the site, which was nearly three miles into the woods from the Echo Lake campground, where the men were staying. Rescuers reported that the men did not have proper clothing, a GPS, or a compass, which would have allowed them to find their way. Given their location, rescuers said the men needed to travel north to reach a road, but kept traveling to the southeast as they sought to find their way.

Rescuing the rescuers

While the rescue of the original victims was effectively complete, the rescue squad then had to turn its attention to extrication of a tracked U.S. Border Patrol ATV that had sunk in a swampy area. It was mired so deeply that rescuers eventually abandoned efforts to winch it out for fear it would come out in pieces. They eventually managed to raise it with cribbing, but it was impossible to drive the machine out, so it is being left in position until further freeze-up makes it possible to trailer it out.

The Border Patrol agent was in tough shape by then, since his boots had filled with water early on and he could no longer feel his feet. “We plucked him off his machine, brought him to base, and treated him as well,” said Captain Rick Slatten, with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, who helped coordinate the rescue. “The machine, to my knowledge is still out there,” he said.