Department of Natural Resources wardens handle more than fish and game

Department of Natural Resources (DNR) deputy chief safety warden Matt O’Brien reported on the Division of Public Safety and Resource Protection emergency response efforts at last month’s Natural Resources Board (NRB) meeting. Due to a board member’s request, he appeared to give the board an update.

The state, he said, has approximately 600,000 boats, 0.5 million ATV/UTVs and 0.25 million snowmobiles registered per year. O’Brien spoke about crash investigations related to those recreational vehicles. The department, he said, has gained a fair amount of expertise when it comes to investigating these crashes that often involve injury and sometime fatalities. He said the department has seen safety challenges with ATV/UTVs becoming more popular and traffic spreading along more road routes. For that reason an education and outreach campaign was kicked off in September of this year in an attempt to raise awareness about safe operation of those vehicles. 

He also highlighted some of the bigger cases from the last few years. One of those was on Lake Winnebago. It was a double homicide case that department wardens were able to solve by reconstructing the crash to determine fault in that case. Another was also on Lake Winnebago and involved a ferry. The department was also able to secure convictions and ensure accountability in that case as well, O’Brien said. 

“Our boat expertise is frankly so impressive, the skills of our staff, we had the U.S. Coast Guard request us to assist Great Britain, and we ended up sending one of our employees down to the British Cayman Islands for a boat homicide case down there,” O’Brien told the board. That person invested quite a bit of time on forensic evidence to help ensure a conviction and bring justice for a family down there as well. Wisconsin, he said, has some of the best boating experts in the country.

Missing-person searches also keep wardens busy, he said. These cases can be anything from a missing toddler to an Alzheimer’s patient who has left a facility where they are staying or who has happened to wander away from a caregiver. These searches can be done on foot, with ATV/UTVs, on snowmobiles or even by boat, should the need arise. Department staff also has a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles at their disposal to use in these types of cases. There is a statewide drone team that handles these high tech pieces of equipment. Each drone is camera-equipped as well as forward-facing infrared imaging. These have been used to locate missing individuals, find lost hikers and even some canoers who went missing. 

People can get lost on the water as well, he said. With the great many lakes in the state, accidents can happen and at times people have gone overboard. The department, he said, has been fortunate enough to be able to find and rescue many of those people in time, but occasionally someone is lost in these types of boating incidents. The mission, then, is to find that person and help to bring closure to the family. To do this, they often employ an ROV, or remotely operated vehicle. O’Brien likened it to a submarine drone. They are sonar equipped and also have a camera. Side scanning technology in the boat can help staff find their target area, then the ROV can be put down. Public safety divers from local sheriff’s departments or other divers can then be deployed in a much safer fashion to assist in that retrieval.

O’Brien spoke about an incident in Kenosha where the department was asked to assist. They first responded to assist with a scuba diver that had not resurfaced. They spent a couple of days trying to locate and retrieve that diver, he said, when they got a call to assist in a criminal case. A person had been in a domestic violence altercation. The man ended up armed and suicidal, O’Brien said, and took his boat three miles out into Lake Michigan. Not only was staff able to bring that man back in safely, but then was also able to pivot back to their original mission and retrieve the scuba diver without having to put the Kenosha dive team into the water by utilizing their recovery equipment.

O’Brien said another source of “daily bread and butter” for department wardens is general law enforcement assistance. This can involve anything from vehicle crashes to domestic violence incidents. With a large amount of Wisconsin being rural, and first responders sometimes low in numbers, wardens often assist local law enforcement with response to incidents. In one of those incidents, a T6 Texan aircraft involved in an EAA event was lost into Lake Winnebago. Warden staff assisted the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department over a three-day effort to assist in locating all of the wreckage.

Wardens also provided support and security during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The department also gets many requests from the U.S. Secret Service to assist with protection details for candidates that come to the state to campaign. 

Also in Milwaukee, during the Bucks playoff games, a warden vessel was instrumental in detecting a group of armed juveniles who were in an attempt to engage in some gang violence. Wardens were able to intervene and apprehend those individuals before the situation, which was likely to produce fatalities, was able to escalate. 

The department also has a specialized winter air boat, O’Brian said, that is used on the Bay of Green Bay. The boat allows wardens to drive on water, up onto ice and back onto water. So, no matter how messy or difficult ice conditions become, they can still get around and help people. It has been used several times on the Bay to rescue fishermen who have become stranded when a piece of ice breaks away, leaving them floating out in the water somewhere.

O’Brien said the department also provides fire assistance. With the dry fall, fire danger has been high. Wardens assist with initial scene response, road closures, evacuations and any other post-fire work such as arson investigations. Recently, arson investigation efforts brought to justice an individual who has been setting fires essentially for the last 20 plus years, O’Brien told the board.

Medical calls are also under the purview of department wardens, O’Brien highlighted an incident in Peninsula State Park where an individual failed to navigate a cliff trail properly and department staff assisted with medical aid that was needed after that fall. 

He also spoke about a rope rescue that took place at Devil’s Lake State Park. Again, he said, some people have a difficult time navigating the trails or rock faces, and department staff works with Baraboo Fire Department to rescue those people. 

Recently, O’Brien said, they were able to get funding in the budget to purchase 200 AEDs that have been rolled out across the state. It was only approximately two weeks after AEDs were put in all warden vehicles that a warden had the need to use one of those devices to save a person’s life. There have been four deployments of those devices already, he said, two of which have produced “live Wisconsinites,” he reported.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].