South Indian Lake RCMP are investigating the death of a 28-year-old woman who appears to have died from exposure to the elements.
The woman was brought to the community’s nursing station around 3:30 a.m. March 1. She had recently returned to the community after having been out on a trail approximately 16 kilometres from the community for 12 hours after the snowmobile she was riding on got stuck.
Police learned that the woman and a 31-year-old man were travelling to a cabin on the afternoon of Feb. 28 when they got stuck. She stayed with the snowmobile while the man walked for several hours back to South Indian Lake. When he arrived there, he went to a residence for assistance. He and another man set out on a snowmobile around 1 a.m. to retrieve the woman.
The trio got back to the community around 3 a. m. and went to a residence where they noticed that the woman had become unresponsive. They called for assistance and she was transported to the nursing station.
An autopsy will be conducted and RCMP continue to investigate.
The death comes just over a week after 47-year-old Noreen Tait of South Indian Lake died in a Winnipeg hospital on Feb. 21 after having been assaulted two days earlier. It also occurred on the same day that two 14-year-old girls were found dead outside a residence in St. Theresa Point where they had been for some length of time on a night when temperatures dropped to around -23 degrees Celsius.
