Aitkin County Drowning: 20-Year-Old Htoo Shwe Identified as Victim of Minnesota Canoeing Accident
WOLF LAKE, Minnesota
– Following a canoeing mishap on Wolf Lake in Aitkin County, Minnesota, a 20-year-old St. Paul man drowned on Saturday night. According to the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office, a complaint of a missing canoer prompted the call for deputies to be sent to Savanna Portage State Park, where the lake is situated, at approximately nine o’clock at night.
Within twenty minutes, rescue personnel—including a diving unit—arrived and dug up Shwe’s body from the lakebed. Officials verified that neither of the guys was wearing a life jacket at the time of the tragedy, and both had been drinking alcohol.
Shwe’s official cause of death has been officially determined to be freshwater drowning by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office. With at least six cases confirmed as of July, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources indicated that this occurrence adds to the rising incidence of drownings in state lakes this year.While on the lake with his cousin, the 911 caller reported that their canoe overturned, plunging both men into the water. The caller’s cousin, Htoo Shwe, panicked and dove beneath the sea as she tried to swim back to shore.