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Over Eleven people rescued from Red Lake

SHOTLEY TOWNSHIP & WASKISH TOWNSHIP- BELTRAMI COUNTY, MN: On Tuesday, November 12, 2019, the Beltrami County Sheriffs Office received several official and unofficial reports that people fishing on Upper Red Lake had become stranded on the ice after strong south winds caused the unsafe ice to separate from shore. Eleven known people were rescued by Kelliher Fire & Rescue with reports of many others being rescued by local resorts.

The exact number rescued is unknown to the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office after it learned that rescue personnel were contacted directly to rescue people off the floating sheets of ice. The Beltrami County Sheriff's Office or 911 Dispatch Center were not called. This circumvented the safe procedures put in place that keeps all first responders as safe as possible during these rescue operations.

Early cold weather has resulted in the lake beginning to ice over earlier than usual with a mixed report on the thickness of the ice. Social media accounts are being used to exploit how safe the ice is, when it isn't. Ice is never 100 percent safe and it is absolutely unsafe this early in the winter fishing season.

This morning the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office contacted the Red Lake area resorts and asked them to not allow fisherman out on the unsafe ice. Doing so risk's the lives of our first responder's and in Beltrami County, like most Minnesota's rural areas, our first responders are volunteers-they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Please do not put their lives at risk.

Ernie Beitel, Sheriff

Beltrami County Sheriff's Office

 

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