Authorities identified two off-duty Wabasha firefighters and a third victim killed after a pontoon collided with a commercial barge on Lake Pepin

By Paul Walsh, Sofia Barnett
Star Tribune

WABASHA COUNTY, Minn. — Officials have identified the two off-duty firefighters and a third person who were killed in an after-dark collision between a pontoon and a barge on Lake Pepin.

The Wabasha County (Minn.) Sheriff’s Office said six people were thrown into the water around 10:45 p.m. Saturday when their pontoon overturned near YMCA Camp Pepin on the Wisconsin side of the lake.

The Pepin County (Wis.) Sheriff’s Office identified the pontoon occupants who died as Nicholas Loechler, 46, Manuel De Angel-Sola, 52, and Ashley Monson, 37. All were from Wabasha.

Wabasha Fire Chief Darren Sheeley told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Tuesday that Loechler and De Angel-Sola were firefighters with his department.

Sheeley added that another one of his firefighters, 40-year-old Corey Monson, was on the pontoon at the time of the collision with his wife, Ashley Monson.

The remaining survivors from the pontoon were Loechler’s wife, 50-year-old Collette Loechler, and 43-year-old Abby Oxendine, of Wabasha, said Pepin County Sheriff Joel Wener.

Emergency crews from Minnesota and Wisconsin scrambled after receiving reports of people screaming for help in the water, the Wabasha County Sheriff’s Office said. Rescuers found three people clinging to the overturned pontoon. They told rescuers that three of their companions did not resurface.

The pontoon collided with a commercial barge, according to a report to the U.S. Coast Guard from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

A large-scale search involving agencies from Minnesota and Wisconsin began Saturday night and resumed Sunday morning, the Wabasha County Sheriff’s Office said. Around 8 p.m. , all three missing bodies had been found in the lake, authorities posted on social media. Lake Pepin is an area where the Mississippi River widens.

“We are grateful to our first responder community,” read a social media posting from the city of Wabasha, “especially the Wabasha Fire Department who supported the search and rescue operations, even while this tragedy hit hard on a personal level.”

In a separate posting, the Wabasha Ambulance Emergency Service said, “Our hearts are with the Wabasha Fire Department and with every family, friend, neighbor, and person who loved them. This isn’t a loss that stays inside one department. In a community this size, it touches all of us.

“We don’t have the right words, so we won’t pretend to. What we have instead is this: we’ll carry them into every call we answer, every time we pull into a station, and every time we think of the people who are no longer standing where they should be.”

St. Felix Catholic Church in Wabasha announced that “in support of the victims, their families, and all those who are grieving,” it held a special prayer service at 7 p.m. Monday.

KAAL-TV reported that the church was occupied to capacity.

“People are just shattered, so we want to be here for these families,” the station reported Wabasha Mayor Emily Durand as saying.

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