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Join Telegram ChannelA park ranger died Sunday at a Minnesota national park when his rescue boat capsized on a lake while he was helping three family members stranded by high winds and rough waters, officials said.
The ranger, who has not yet been publicly identified, responded to a call Sunday morning about a civilian vessel in distress on Namakan Lake in Voyageurs National Park, the National Park Service (NPS) said.
The ranger's boat capsized while towing the civilian vessel across 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, according to the NPS website. (Emily Kurmis/NPS)
The Rangers, along with the U.S. Border Patrol, the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office and the Kabetogama Fire Department, conducted a three-hour search and recovered the missing ranger's body from the lake at 3:20 p.m., the Rangers said. NPS.
High winds caused waves five to six feet high by the time the ranger helped the family, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
Voyageurs National Park spans 218,000 acres of lakes, forests and streams in northern Minnesota, according to the NPS. (NPS)
St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay told the newspaper that one of the responding rangers said he had never seen such “wild” wind conditions.
Ramsay said the deceased ranger was experienced and close to retirement.
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“He just wanted to help other people and that’s what he died for, is helping other people,” Ramsay told the Star Tribune. “He had a servant’s heart, obviously.”
The ranger had not yet been publicly identified as of Monday morning. (National Park Service)
This ranger is the second to die in a national park in a few months.
In June, Tom Lorig, a 78-year-old park ranger, died in Utah after being injured 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 near the Canadian border.