18-year-old dies after rescuing several young relatives swimming near dam, MN cops say

An 18-year-old woman drowned after saving several children — all relatives — who began struggling in a Minnesota lake, police say.

A group of children were swimming near a dam in Clearwater Lake around 3:45 p.m. Monday, Clearwater County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Each of the seven children was the teen’s sibling or cousin, the Star Tribune reported.

Witnesses told police that some of the children got caught in rough water that was flowing over the dam and couldn’t get to safety.

Raina Neeland, 18, sprang to action and pulled some of the children from the lake before disappearing underwater, police said.

Her body was recovered 10 minutes later.

The youngest of the children Neeland saved is 6 years old, the Tribune reported. Another child — an 8-year-old girl — was pulled from the water unresponsive and was resuscitated by a bystander, police said.

Bystanders were also performing CPR on Neeland when police arrived.

Officials also called Life Flight for the teen, but medics were unable to save her, police said.

Sheriff Darin Halverson said the outcome could have been very different had Neeland not rescued the children.

“We probably would have had multiple fatalities,” Halverson told the Tribune. “The water is just churning under the dam. ... She did her part and saved who she could.”

“We could have been burying five of them out of the eight,” Jeremy Neeland, the teen’s uncle, told the newspaper.

Officials said water levels were higher than usual due to large amounts of rain.

This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 12:34 PM with the headline "18-year-old dies after rescuing several young relatives swimming near dam, MN cops say."