Safe at last

Unfortunately, there is a paywall.

By Sam Cook
March 02, 2022 07:20 AM
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GRAND MARAIS — Karen Neal had a problem.

Neal, of Grand Marais, was 2 miles by snowshoe down the Cascade River west of Grand Marais. The temperature that day, Feb. 12, was 1 degree below zero. And she was lying in ice-cold river water, weighed down by water and slush, unable to get out.

“In all my years, I’ve never felt so helpless,” Neal said in a recent telephone interview. “If I’d been by myself, that would have been it. There was nothing I could do.”

Neal, a fit 75-year-old who climbs 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado, was fortunate. She had nine resourceful women with her — four from Grand Marais and five from Duluth or Superior. The Grand Marais women are in Neal’s generation, while the Duluth-Superior women are mostly in their 40s.

Leading the group that day on the Cascade, Neal was snowshoeing where she thought there was a remnant path beneath the fresh snow. But suddenly there was only river water below the veil of snow.

She plunged into the river, falling backwards as she dropped.

“I was sinking into this hole. My butt was wet already,” said Neal, a retired teacher. “I never touched the bottom. Then I saw my snowshoes go under.”

Her friends tried extending her a ski pole and eventually pulled Neal somewhat closer to shore. But she was still partly in the river.

That’s when Neal’s friend Christina Waletzko, of Superior, took decisive action.

“My top half was out of the water when Christina grabbed me,” Neal said. “Her adrenaline kicked in. She was able to hoist me up onto the bank.”

But the ordeal was not over. The snowshoers were still two miles downstream from their vehicles. Neal was still soaked to the skin, and the day wasn’t getting any warmer.

“To walk out was the only option,” Neal wrote in a Facebook account of the incident. “There was no cell service to rally any help. I knew I had to move, and fast.”

Her jacket began to freeze on her, she said. Neal’s friends removed it and gave her some of their clothing. Then they started retracing their path upriver to their vehicles.

“Everyone had a job. Everyone was so calm,” said Amanda Oja, one of Neal’s friends from Duluth. “We knew we had to get her out of there.”

They had considered getting Neal out of her wet clothing but Neal had rejected that idea, Oja said. She wanted to get moving. So, the women began their brisk march upriver.

Neal said she could feel herself fading the longer she went.

“I progressively got worse in the head, body and arms, but my legs just kept going,” Neal said in a telephone interview from her home recently. “I was hoping to make it but had absolutely no assurance of that. I was stumbly.”

One of her friends offered her a cookie for some quick calories.

“But my mouth wouldn’t work,” Neal said.

She tossed the cookie into the snow and kept moving.

The snowshoe trip downriver had taken 99 minutes, according to a group member’s phone, Neal said. The same trip back up took just 49 minutes, the last mile under 15 minutes.

The group got Neal into a car and drove to the Cook County North Shore Hospital in Grand Marais. Her core temperature there was 94 degrees, Neal said, which put her in the mild hypothermia category. Hypothermia occurs when a person’s body loses heat faster than it can produce heat. Hospital staff rewarmed her beneath a heated air blanket, and her body temperature soon returned to normal.

“I have never felt more vulnerable,” Neal wrote after the incident. “These nine girls saved me because they are strong, sensible, non-panic friends.”

The incident raises the usual questions about the risks of traveling frozen North Shore streams in winter, a popular activity. Ice conditions on those streams vary throughout winter and from river to river based on water levels, current speed, snow cover and air temperatures.

Conditions on the Cascade were different during this past trip than Neal had seen before, she said.

“Every other year, it’s been a defined (snowshoe) path,” she said.

But this year, Neal said, early snows had formed “blankets” that provided insulation to the river, preventing normal ice formation. All of that was hidden under subsequent snowfalls, she said. No obvious trail from previous travelers was apparent, Neal said.

She and her friends gathered for dinner that evening in Grand Marais, as planned, after Neal was out of the hospital. Their conversations included plenty of questions about future river travels in winter.

“Is there a way to judge where you should cross these rivers?” Neal asked rhetorically. “Is there any scientific way to make that path across the river a safe one?”

She sounded as if she knew the answers to those questions.

One thing is certain, Neal said, “Not going is not an option, but I think I’ll always pack extra clothes and a rope!”

“The next day,” Duluth’s Oja said, “she took us all cross-country skiing. “To see her resilience — that’s why we all want to be Karen Neal when we grow up.”

Sam Cook is a freelance writer for the News Tribune. Reach him at cooksam48@gmail.com or find his Facebook page at facebook.com/sam.cook.5249 .

RELATED TOPICS: SAM COOKGRAND MARAISNORTH SHORE

Wow. That certainly could have ended much worse if she didn't have the group with her. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it probably would have been better to get out of the wet clothes and cobble together an outfit from the other group members, as it seems some of them tried to do.

Yikes. She really was getting close to maxing out the 1-10-1 rule for falling through the ice, especially that last hike out that took 49 min. I'm glad it all worked out.

1-10-1 rule refresher for falling through the ice

I wonder if they had a PLB if there was any point they felt they would have pushed the button?

"One thing is certain, Neal said, “Not going is not an option, but I think I’ll always pack extra clothes and a rope!”
"

That's the best part. Learn from lessons and get back out there.

WonderMonkey: "

"One thing is certain, Neal said, “Not going is not an option, but I think I’ll always pack extra clothes and a rope!”
"

That's the best part. Learn from lessons and get back out there."

I agree, get back out there. But it's not as if it never happened...

Thanks, Janice.

Thankfully everything turned out okay. Huge kudos to the women who helped her and good for her for getting back out there.

If I had a PBL I would have been tempted to push the button immediately, given the luxury of making a hypothetical decision from the comfort of my couch! I also agree with the comment of sharing dry/warm clothes, even if it took an extra 5-7 minutes. Good for them formulating a plan during the crisis and taking action as a team. Pretty impressive they cut their time to under 50 minutes on the return trip.

Accidents happen so quickly. Stay safe, folks.

I think they were out before SOS would have got anybody there. Time was of the essence.

With 9 of them they could have come up with enough extra clothing to cover her.

Did they have any fire building materials.

Emergency space blankets.

Having traveled many miles on frozen rivers hunting trapping and just walking
.
Being aware and having a probing device is very help full.

I wonder if the normal path goes over the river? I know the cascade and there are some deep holes and alot of moving water. I snowshoe quite a bit on our property and the adjoining county and federal land. On that land is a trout stream that I've spent countless hours on. I know where all the deep holes are and I simply stay off them.

Walking on the river, through the years I've punched through the ice a number of times and soaked a snowshoe, but my boots are water proof and i'm only walking on the river where I know it to be less than a foot deep. I would never blindly go walking across or up a big deep river like the cascade. Glad she's ok, but man walking up a river like the cascade doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

thebotanyguy: "Unfortunately, there is a paywall."

If you're using your laptop hit the reader view and then reload the page.

We heard a great interview with Neal on WTIP last month. She was calm and reflective telling the story and emphasized that she would, and all of us should, learn from our experiences but keep getting out. The Sam Cook article covers her story well. On WTIP, she confirmed they didn't have a PLB and that it's on her new list of equipment to consider having along. She said she will always now take a fire-starter, some basic dry clothes and a good rope. As I remember the interview, she listed having a PLB as something to consider but maybe optional unless going solo/small group.

The women with her did donate various dry clothing to her once she was out of the river and moving. They headed for the cars as fast as possible and didn't try to strip her down because, as I remember, they thought too much time had already passed (she was already too cold) and that they didn't have a way to build a fire.

The most interesting thing was how impossible it seemed for the one woman, Christina, to have pulled her out of river up a vertical snow wall by brute strength when she was still half submerged and in snowshoes. The whole group had been trying for a while and then Christina got it done on her own in one swift miracle move when things were getting dire. It sounded like one of those impossible adrenaline rush scenarios that saved her.

This seems like it was was a well-seasoned group that, I felt, did everything they could under the circumstances. It was a very fortunate outcome. My wife and I realized that we are probably not careful enough to take everything we should have for a "nice" winter hike, snowshoe or ski. It's another good reminder to always consider what could happen rather than what you expect to happen.