PINE COUNTY, Minn. — A woman is being treated for a broken leg after an air rescue team plucked her from a remote island on the Kettle River in Pine County Tuesday.
The Pine County Sheriff's Office says dispatchers received a 911 call reporting that a woman on an island between Sandstone and Hinckley had stepped in a hole and broken her leg.
Deputies responded to the area with field agents from the DNR and members of the Hinckley Fire Department, and quickly determined that difficult access and rough terrain would make it a complicated rescue. While first responders were able to kayak to the victim, the decision was made to call in the Minnesota Air Rescue Team (MART) to perform a rescue.
MART is a collaborative effort between the Minnesota State Patrol and the St. Paul Fire Department's Advance Technical Rescue Team.
St. Paul Assistant Fire Chief Roy Mokosso confirms that two members of the department's technical rescue team took off this morning from Holman field in the State Patrol helicopter. He says generally in these situations his team members will be lowered from the helicopter into a location that is inaccessible by other means.
That's exactly what happened in this case. MART team members were lowered onto the island, and were able to air evacuate the woman to a nearby field where she was loaded into an ambulance.
Pine County Sheriff's officials say her injuries are not life threatening.
