Three missing boaters from a Lake Pepin boat crash were found and pronounced deceased on Sunday, ending a search that began after an overturned pontoon was reported late Saturday night. Pepin County’s Sheriff’s Office said first responders located the missing people during search operations and later transported them to the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office in St. Paul for autopsies.
The search had already shifted from rescue to recovery by the time the update came late Sunday, after officers spent hours looking for the three people who were not found with the boat. The pontoon had six people aboard, and three survivors were pulled from the water clinging to the boat after it overturned just offshore from the YMCA Camp on Deer Island in Pepin County, Wisconsin.
Wabasha County Sheriff Curt Struwe said at least one survivor suffered injuries, though the extent of those injuries was unknown, and the other two survivors were in fair condition. His description was the clearest sign that some people aboard the pontoon were still being assessed even as the search for the missing boaters was closing in on its final stage.
Authorities said the incident began as a collision between two boats on Lake Pepin, but the other watercraft had not yet been identified. That detail leaves one of the key questions unanswered even after the most urgent one was resolved: how a nighttime crash in open water turned into an overturned pontoon, three injured survivors and three deaths.
More than 10 agencies joined the search and rescue operation, with rescue boats, drones, helicopters and other resources spread across the water and shoreline. The response crossed county and state lines, and officials said the search was still active as of 10:30 a.m. Sunday before the later recovery brought it to a close. The identities of the deceased were being withheld until family members were notified.
For the people on the pontoon, the weekend ended in a hard accounting. Three survived. Three did not. The next step is the autopsy process in St. Paul, while investigators still have to determine what the second boat was and how the collision unfolded in the first place.
