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BWCAW

Necessary response?

Rescue officials: Second-guessing could hamper future rescues

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 8/2/19

ELY— Questions linger about the overnight rescue of a group of nine Girl Scouts from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness last Friday night after a lightning strike that occurred as …

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BWCAW

Necessary response?

Rescue officials: Second-guessing could hamper future rescues

Posted

ELY— Questions linger about the overnight rescue of a group of nine Girl Scouts from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness last Friday night after a lightning strike that occurred as thunderstorms rolled across northeastern Minnesota. The harrowing rescue, undertaken in darkness, created a social media sensation as it unfolded late Friday and early Saturday morning— so much so that the incident soon attracted national media coverage and a tweet from Minnesota Gov. Mark Walz, hoping for the safe rescue of the girls.
Initial reports suggested the Scouts had gotten lost in a storm and that as many as two of the girls had perished after being struck by lightning. The actual story proved significantly less dramatic. The rescue squad reached the group at about 11 p.m. on Friday, on Knife Lake, located about 30 miles northeast of Ely, along the U.S.-Canada border. They immediately worked to evacuate the entire party and all involved managed to make it back to the Moose Lake landing just before 4 a.m. on Saturday, and were then taken to Ely. All of the girls were reported to be in satisfactory condition following examination at the Ely-Bloomenson Hospital.
The situation left some wondering in the aftermath about the initial reporting of the incident and whether the rescue was necessary under the circumstances.
Some media reports even suggested that the St. Louis County Rescue Squad had “overstated the urgency of the situation.”
Rescue squad officials dismiss that suggestion and note it was the initial 911 call that had pointed to a real emergency requiring a full-blown response.
Dispatchers with both St. Louis and Lake counties insist that the reports they received suggested a very serious situation, involving as many as five victims, one in severe condition.
“It did come in as a severe accident,” said Janel, the Lake County dispatcher who took the call, but declined to give her last name. “We were told she was having severe reactions to a lightning strike,” she added, referring to the most seriously-affected girl.
That’s the report that Lake County dispatchers forwarded to St. Louis County when they requested support from the St. Louis County Rescue Squad, which has more personnel and equipment closer to the scene of Friday’s incident.
The initial number of Scouts involved wasn’t clear. Some reports suggested the initial call reported six Scouts in the party, although Lake County initially reported five victims to St. Louis County, with two of the girls suffering injuries from a lightning strike, one in severe condition. “That’s the report that we got,” said Jason Matthias, an emergency assistance center supervisor for St. Louis County.
And that’s the only information that the St. Louis County Rescue Squad received as they prepared to respond. “That was the mission that we were charged with,” said Kurt Erickson, a first lieutenant with the rescue squad. “That is what motivated us to attempt the rescue and reach out to the National Guard and the state patrol for air support.” Erickson called for those resources to help pinpoint the location of the Scouts, since the initial coordinates the Scouts had provided did not appear to be accurate.
One of the state patrol aircraft did make it to Ely in the early morning hours on Saturday, but by that time the rescuers had reached the Scouts near the Knife Lake side of the portage from Vera Lake, so the plane and its crew refueled and returned to their home base.
Erickson was concerned when the story told by the Girl Scouts appeared to change, suggesting the girls involved had felt only a slight tingle from a nearby lightning strike. It was that statement, issued by the Girl Scouts public relations staff, that provoked some of the media speculation about the reaction to the call from rescuers. “I can understand that the Girl Scouts want to protect their image and suggest they would never put these girls in danger,” Erickson said.
The volunteers who make up the rescue squad are used to the fact that initial reports don’t always give a full or accurate portrayal of emergency incidents. And, particularly in remote locations, such as in last Friday’s rescue on Knife Lake, communication can be difficult and updates infrequent. “A lot of times, we don’t get an update until we arrive at the scene,” said Jon Olson, a veteran member of the rescue squad.
Yet such reports are often the only information that rescuers have to go on as they decide how to respond to calls for help. “If you tell me it’s critical, I’m going to move hell and high water to get you out of there,” said Erickson.
Erickson said he’s concerned such second-guessing could hamper future rescue efforts in the area. “We spent political capital trying to get the state patrol and the Army National Guard involved,” he said, and he worries that such resources could be withheld in the future if local officials are accused of overreacting, or “crying wolf.”
In the end, said Erickson, evacuation of the girls was the right call in either case.
“By the time we got into them, the effects of the lightning had pretty much worn off,” acknowledges Erickson. Still, he said the body is affected by lightning in unpredictable ways that may not be apparent until hours later. “The recommendation in all of our wilderness training, is if someone is affected by lightning, they need to be evacuated.”
The Timberjay reached out to the Girl Scouts for comment on this story. They did not respond as of presstime.

Ely, Girl Scouts, Boundary Waters, Walz, lightning