Girl Scouts say no direct hits in Minnesota lightning strike

Duluth, Minn. – None of the Girl Scouts who were rescued from a remote Minnesota island near the Canadian border overnight was directly struck by lightning, after all, officials said Saturday.

The Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes and Pines said in a Facebook post that all of the girls were back at their canoe base in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on Saturday morning after being checked at a hospital in Ely, which is about 215 miles north of Minneapolis. It said no one was directly struck by lightning, but “they might have experienced ground current.”

Authorities said earlier Saturday that two girls in the group of nine, which included a guide, were injured by the lightning strike Friday night. But the St. Louis County Rescue Squad, which reached the group on a Knife Lake island at about 4 a.m., later said on Facebook that all patients were “awake, alert, and able to move without assistance.”

Rick Slatten, of the rescue squad, told the Star Tribune that the scouts were 15 to 18 years old.