Voyageurs National Park ranger dies while helping stranded boaters in rough waters
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A Voyageurs National Park ranger died Sunday while responding to a call for help from a family stranded on an island on Namakan Lake amid high winds and rough waters.
Kevin Grossheim, 55, of Kabetogama, responded to a late-morning distress call, according to the National Park Service.
The family was camping on an island on the huge lake along the U.S.-Canada border. St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said waves 5 to 6 feet high near Birch Cove Island had pushed their boat so far up onto the shore that they couldn’t free it.
Grossheim picked up the family, consisting of a father, an adult son and a young son about 8 years old. But the Park Service boat flipped on the trip back to the mainland.
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“The front kind of nosedived, the boat listed, and flipped over upside-down,” Ramsay said, noting that previous reports indicating that the ranger was towing the family’s boat were inaccurate.
The three family members were able to swim back to the island. But Grossheim didn’t surface. Ramsay said the ranger was wearing a self-inflating life jacket designed to inflate when it makes contact with water.
His body was recovered from the lake at about 3:20 p.m., after a three-hour search.
“The ranger in this case was known in this community,” Ramsay said. “He volunteered with fire and EMS, and really had a servant’s heart, and he died doing what he liked to do, and that was helping people.”
The incident remains under investigation.
Grossheim began his career at Boston National Historical Park in 1993 and worked seasonally at Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado, according to the National Park Service. He also worked at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore before beginning his 23-year tenure as a commissioned law enforcement park ranger at Voyageurs.
Details about his memorial services are still being finalized. The National Park Service said American flags will be lowered at national parks through sunset Oct. 9 in Grossheim’s honor, and Gov. Tim Walz announced all U.S. and Minnesota flags at state buildings will fly at half-staff as well.
“Kevin was much loved by all and always known to go above and beyond,” Voyageurs National Park Superintendent Bob DeGross said in a statement. “He will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to his wife and their loved ones.”
The United States Border Patrol, St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, and Kabetogama Fire Department assisted in the search and recovery effort.
Rescue personnel responded to other water emergencies Sunday in high winds and rough conditions. Ramsay said a canoe with three people in it flipped in the Crane Lake area, but they were able to make it to shore on their own.
The St. Louis County Rescue Squad also responded to a report of a capsized canoe in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Those two individuals also were able to make it to shore.
A first responder involved in the search on Namakan Lake said conditions were the roughest he’d ever seen, Ramsay said.
“And he’d worked up there for many years,” Ramsay said. “He knows the lake very well.”
