Two capsized-boat calls mark busy spring on Otter Tail lakes

Two capsized-boat calls on two Otter Tail County lakes landed in the sheriff’s May 12-18 blotter, a sharp reminder that the county’s water season was already producing the kind of calls that can define a busy spring.

The same roundup also listed a female struck by a car along State Highway 108 and an elderly woman who fell off a ladder, showing deputies and other responders were already working a wide mix of springtime emergencies. The boating reports mattered because a capsizing can be little more than a nuisance in calm weather, or a life-threatening rescue when water is cold, shore is distant or a person is injured or trapped.

Otter Tail County says its Water Patrol deputies patrol lakes, rivers and waterways, assist boaters in distress, investigate boating-related complaints and accidents, and give water-safety talks. The county also updates its sheriff daily activity report every day, which makes a brief blotter item one of the clearest public records of how quickly routine recreation can turn into a call for help.

That warning carries extra weight in Otter Tail County, where tourism materials say there are 1,048 lakes, more than any other county in the United States. With that much water and a steady rise in boats as summer approaches, small incidents can add up fast, especially when operators are underestimating wind, wake, crowded channels or the cold-water conditions that persist well into the season.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says the single best thing a boater can do to avoid drowning is wear a life jacket. State law requires one Coast Guard-approved, properly sized and easily accessible life jacket for each person onboard, and children under 10 must wear an approved life jacket while the boat is underway.

The DNR also says more than 30 percent of boating fatalities in Minnesota happen in cold water with a victim not wearing a life jacket, and that falls overboard and capsizing are the most common causes of boating deaths. In mid-May, when the air can feel like spring but the water still feels like winter, that risk is exactly what the two capsized-boat calls brought into focus for Otter Tail County boaters heading into the long season ahead.