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Woman and teenage boy from Texas dead after storm in Ontario's Quetico Park

OPP say 4 dead in motor vehicle crash near Wawa, Ont.

Ontario Provincial Police say a 39-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy, both from Texas, are dead after a severe storm moved through Quetico Provincial Park in the northwestern part of the province in the early morning hours of July 21.

The deceased have been identified as Rorth Lac, 39, from Carrollton, Texas, and Christian James Sanchez, 13, from Lewisville, Texas, police announced in a written release Thursday.

Another two people from Texas were also injured in the same incident, said OPP Cst Jim Davis in a CBC News interview Friday.

"It was as a result of heavy wind conditions, and a tree fell, causing the injuries and the fatalities," Davis said. "For lack of a better word, this was an act of God."

"It's obviously a very sad event," he said. "It's a very sombre feeling around our office regarding the incident that took place."

The group was in Quetico as part of a Boy Scouts of America canoe trip through the popular Boundary Waters wilderness area, which straddles the border between Ontario and Minnesota, about 150 kilometres west of Thunder Bay.

The incident occurred at the Basswood Lake campsite, which does not have road access, and is very close to the U.S. border, but within the boundaries of Quetico Provincial Park.

Davis said OPP were contacted just after 5 a.m. on Thursday.

"We engaged our emergency response team," Davis said. "We had minimum one fatality, and we knew that there were injuries."

"Considering we'd had, basically, garbled radio transmissions that we were getting our information from, and spotty satellite phone service, that was making it difficult to get all the details."

Police officers and park personnel, along with staff from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, the U.S. Forestry Service and the Lake County Sheriff Department attended the scene.

The Orgne air ambulance service also participated in the response.

The injured were taken to Duluth, Minnesota for medical treatment, police said.

Post mortem examinations will be conducted today at the Lake of the Woods Hospital in Kenora, Ont.

The deaths are not considered suspicious, said Davis.

When contacted by CBC, representatives of Quetico Provincial Park referred calls to the OPP.