2 die at Lake of the Woods

http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/19392/

scary stuff, I wonder what happened. It will be an interesting story to follow.

Yeah, saw this on the news. A weird one for sure.

Big waters like l.o.w is no joke even for the best boaters. It will be interesting to see what happened.

ya i heard about this aslo. turns out i went to high school with the 35 year old…..sorry to hear of this and im feeling for his family!

My first guess would be CO poisoning.

Trolling on Lake Superior two weeks ago I was getting headaches after trolling all day in an open boat. More so whe the wind was at my back.

It’s a high priority for me to get a deeper boat with a 4 stroke. I’m afraid something like that could happen.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/09/03/sheriff-2-dead-in-northern-minnesota-boating-accident/ try this link, somehow the other failed

Update on the story from KARE11.com

WILLIAMS, Minn. – The Ramsey County Medical Examiner says the two men found dead aboard a boat on the shore of Lake of the Woods died from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

Authorities identified the men as Lonnie Ray Norberg, 44, of Champlin and Jeffrey Edward Wheeler, 35, also of Champlin.

A third man, Christopher Andrew Klick, 43, of Crystal, survived the incident and remains hospitalized at Altru Hospital in Grand Forks.

The Lake of the Woods County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a boat that floated to shore in the Birch Beach area at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday, north of Williams, Minnesota.

A preliminary investigation indicates that a faulty exhaust system may be the cause of high levels of carbon monoxide.

The investigation continues with the assistance of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

That’s a sad story and a lesson for all of us boat owners

Was up this weekend never knew anything about it.

Bingo. I just heard about the possibility of CO poisoning in open boats from a coworker. Now I’m more conscious of it when I’m trolling. Don’t think that because you have an open bow boat that its not possible.

Wow, nice call.

I wonder if at some point they felt sick and shut down the engine, but it was too late? I know if I felt sick and someone else felt sick, that’s the first thing I would think of.

It is a good lesson that you might want to take action at the first sign.

There are symptoms, right?

Sometimes… sometimes the symptoms are “your dead”.

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People who are sleeping or intoxicated can die from CO poisoning before ever experiencing symptoms.

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Oh yeah, I forgot about the drinking part.

I’ve had what I’d call moderate CO poisoning and two people I was with passed out and an ambulance was called. They both came to with fresh air but it didn’t dawn on us what happened for a couple days when on of the guys went to the hospital with side effects. The symptoms don’t always register, especially when the circumstances are odd. Ours was from an improperly vented heater in a shed. The overhead doors were opened when the ambulance came. Massive headache didn’t show up for about an hour afterward.

Another update from the Strib.

Lake of the Woods boating survivor tells of engine fumes killing two buddies
Article by: JOY POWELL , Star Tribune Updated: September 3, 2013 – 11:17 PM

Christopher Klick said he was unconscious for hours as big waves tossed the boat on Lake of the Woods.

Christopher Klick awoke in pitch dark, disoriented and battered as the stalled boat bucked big waves on Lake of the Woods. He was pretty sure his two pals were dead on the deck nearby.

The boat’s engine-exhaust fumes must have somehow blown back into the partly enclosed deck as they were fishing Sunday evening, he said from a Grand Forks, N.D., hospital bed Tuesday.

“I woke up in the boat in the middle of the water with my two buddies dead, and the boat almost full of water,” said Klick, 43, of Crystal. “And I was able to drive it and navigate it back to shore.”

Autopsies by the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office reported that Klick’s friends — Lonnie Ray Norberg, 44, and Jeff Wheeler, 35, both of Champlin — died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

“I don’t know how I made it,” Klick said. “I was out for four hours, and burned and bruised and battered from head to toe. I got a concussion. I can’t walk.”

They had been floating in Norberg’s 30-foot boat in the huge lake on the Canadian border. “The last time I remember it being was six thirty,” Klick said. “I went from being wide-awake to not remembering a thing, and waking up four or five hours later in the pitch black, freezing cold, drenched wet, bruised, burned and my knee swollen.”

Tall waves had violently rocked the boat, throwing him around the deck and into the engine, he said. Barely able to stand on torn knee ligaments, Klick managed to start the boat.

“I saw lights on shore, so I just drove to that area, where I saw the lights,” he said, adding that it took 10 or 15 long minutes.

He tried to call 911 with his cellphone. Sheriff’s dispatcher Cherie Anderson confirmed taking the call at 11:18 p.m. but said she could hear nothing on the line, except for a “glug, glug, glug” sound that she said sounded like water.

She called the phone company to try to learn who owned the cellphone.

Klick continued toward land, chilled to the bone.

“I flipped the spotlight,” he said. “Shining the spotlight on and off at this area where I saw there were people, and was on the horn of the boat, and got their attention before I got to shore, and was hollering out to them to call 911.”

Klick said he “ran the boat up onto the shore.”

Rescue workers arrived at 11:30 p.m. and found his two friends dead.

Tuesday night, Klick anguished over what went wrong. The boat has an inboard motor, he said. They were on the main part of the boat, on a fishing deck. The boat has a hard top, and where the helm is located is semi-enclosed but a person can walk all the way through.

“We were done fishing, and we were heading for shore. The wind was at our back, and there must have been just some kind of an exhaust leak or an exhaust malfunction, and there was enough exhaust in that engine area that it wasn’t escaping and it was able to blow up into the area that we were in,” Klick said.

“I don’t know, don’t have any answers,” he said Tuesday. “The wind was at 10 miles an hour, so there was wind. We were in an open area. It’s not like we were in a sealed area with a heater … so it’s just unbelievable. Unexplainable.”

Joy Powell • 612-673-7750

Wow, that’s just a terribly sad story. Makes a guy think twice too. Seems like it can just sneak up on you without any symptoms.

I wonder if at some point they felt sick and shut down the engine, but it was too late? I know if I felt sick and someone else felt sick, that’s the first thing I would think of.

if you are having symptoms of co poisoning, you are not going to think straight. I have two friends that got gassed in a portable fish house on mille lacs. they did make it home, but the route that they took was not the most direct, as their thinking was messed up. they did end up at hcmc hyperbaric chamber after family members figured something was wrong. they don’t call it THE SILENT KILLER for nothing.

I hear you man. Like I said, this thread is a great heads up and eye opener.

Never thought about CO poison in the boat before. I had a near death on mille lacs this last winter though and can’t believe i survived that one after reading this story.

That makes it real sad, the guy is searching for his own answers, I know I have smelt the fumes when trolling as the wind is coming up my back side…..

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That makes it real sad, the guy is searching for his own answers, I know I have smelt the fumes when trolling as the wind is coming up my back side…..

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This is incorrect. You have not smelt CO and it’s dangerous to believe that you have.

Carbon monoxide (CO) has no smell. It is orderless and tasteless and that’s what makes it so deadly. The fumes you smell from an outboard or other engine are not CO, they are unburned hydrocarbons and while CO is present, you should NEVER expect to detect CO by smelling it. Most deaths occur exactly because CO is present but no signs betray it.

Another very important fact about CO poisoning. Because the gas builds up in the bloodstream, you cannot quickly stop the deadly effects simply by getting to fresh air. It’s like being injected with poison. Once the poision is in your bloodstream, you are being killed by it. Getting to fresh air may keep it from getting worse, but you may ALREADY have a lethal dose in your bloodstream and therefore fresh air can be too little too late if other emergency treatment is not started.

This is the reason why it’s not enough to recognize the symptoms and take action on the slightest suspicion. You may realize at some point what is happening, but at the point you are so incapacitated or the CO levels in your bloodstream have reached a point where you will not survive long enough to save yourself.

Symptoms include (from the Mayo Clinic’s diagnostic manual):

Dull headache
Weakness
Dizziness
Nausea
Vomiting
Shortness of breath
Confusion
Blurred vision
Loss of consciousness

The key is to avoid, avoid, avoid the possible sources. Use detectors, ventilate all areas where combustion gasses are present, and never ignore any single symptom.

Grouse

Very Sad.

THAT doesn’t make any sense to me at all. None of it. How in the world in a mostly open environment can you get killed from carbon monoxide?? and how did he get burned? was there an open flame amongst the waves crashing over the side? and the original article said the cover was off the engine when he got in,, what’s up with that? Yeah, a lot doesn’t make ANY sense to me and this is a terrible tragedy

As an addition to the above, Carbon Monoxide mixes almost evenly with air. It does not “pool” near the floor like natural gas or “rise” like smoke. It mixes (more or less) evenly with the air, so you can’t avoid it when high levels are present.

Therefore, you can be standing in an area where you would assume there is “fresh air”, but if there is a source like an engine nearby that is introducing enough CO, then you are breathing CO that is mixed with the other gasses that make up air.

Grouse

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Very Sad.

THAT doesn’t make any sense to me at all. None of it. How in the world in a mostly open environment can you get killed from carbon monoxide??

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Google up “carbon monoxide poisoning while boating”. There are pages and pages of stories like this one. Tragic but common in every state.

Recent story of a kid getting poisoned being pulled behind the boat in a tube!

http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1031613/14/Maple-Grove-family-warns-of-hidden-danger-while-boating

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and how did he get burned?

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I can imagine a situation where he slid unconscious into a hot inboard motor and was burned by the exhaust headers. Something along those lines.

-J.

The account I read mentioned that very thing. He got tossed around in the boat and ended up against the hot motor.

Yikes. How unfortunate, and how scary for the man that survived. Wow.

My god this stuff is way more wicked than I would have ever thought. One time I had one of those lamp shade lookin’ space heaters in my garage for a party,, well, enough in and out of the house and the CO detectors went off in the house. I can only imagine how much was in the garage!

I saw on the news today the Sheriff said they found an empty pop can stuck in the exhaust pipe.

Quote:

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Quote:

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That makes it real sad, the guy is searching for his own answers, I know I have smelt the fumes when trolling as the wind is coming up my back side…..

---

This is incorrect. You have not smelt CO and it’s dangerous to believe that you have.

Carbon monoxide (CO) has no smell. It is orderless and tasteless and that’s what makes it so deadly. The fumes you smell from an outboard or other engine are not CO, they are unburned hydrocarbons and while CO is present, you should NEVER expect to detect CO by smelling it. Most deaths occur exactly because CO is present but no signs betray it.

Another very important fact about CO poisoning. Because the gas builds up in the bloodstream, you cannot quickly stop the deadly effects simply by getting to fresh air. It’s like being injected with poison. Once the poision is in your bloodstream, you are being killed by it. Getting to fresh air may keep it from getting worse, but you may ALREADY have a lethal dose in your bloodstream and therefore fresh air can be too little too late if other emergency treatment is not started.

This is the reason why it’s not enough to recognize the symptoms and take action on the slightest suspicion. You may realize at some point what is happening, but at the point you are so incapacitated or the CO levels in your bloodstream have reached a point where you will not survive long enough to save yourself.

Symptoms include (from the Mayo Clinic’s diagnostic manual):

Dull headache
Weakness
Dizziness
Nausea
Vomiting
Shortness of breath
Confusion
Blurred vision
Loss of consciousness

The key is to avoid, avoid, avoid the possible sources. Use detectors, ventilate all areas where combustion gasses are present, and never ignore any single symptom.

Grouse

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I think Mayo was studying the use of a hyperbaric chamber as a treatment in co poisoning. Nasty stuff regardless. Those sunflower heaters so common in portable ice shacks are notorious for high levels of co while operating.