Death, injury are risks of Boundary Waters canoe trips

[Lee Borgersen]

Death, injury are risks of Boundary Waters canoe trips

by Echo staff

A 73-year-old Indiana man suffered a heart attack and died Monday while on a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

U.S. Forest Service search and rescue personnel were dispatched into the BWCAW twice in four days this week, first to transport the body of James W. Coombs and the rest of his party.

Coombs hailed from Columbus, Ind.

A Forest Service plane went into the wilderness, with an emergency medical technician and a Lake County Sheriff Department representative on board. The plane landed on the portage between Birch and Karp Lakes, according to district ranger Mark Van Every.

On Thursday, scanner reports indicated that a 15-year-old boy from Texas suffered a fractured leg in the BWCAW.

Emergency personnel were again called, this time to Vera Lake, north of Ensign Lake.