Mayo-Franciscan doc answers call of this wild to help rescue woman

Oct. 22--One of Dr. Bob Key's main attractions to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is that it provides a restful, secluded respite from his job as a physician in Prairie du Chien.

But duty calls, even if cellphones won't, Key discovered Sept. 21 when he had to reel in his bait while fishing on Caribou Lake to help rescue a woman with a broken leg.

The 45-year-old Key said he has found solace and sport in the 1.1 million acres of wilderness in northeastern Minnesota ever since he was a fifth-grader growing up in the tiny town of Wrenshall, Minn., 25 miles southwest of Duluth.

"It's nice to get away from everyday life, phones, the radio" and other technological distractions, said Key, a family practice physician at Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare in Prairie du Chien.

The lack of cellphone service "is one of my favorite parts about it," he said.

Another alluring aspect is walleye fishing, as he and his brother, Tim, were doing about an hour after sunrise when they saw brother-in-law Mark Bissonette waving them toward shore.

Moments before, Stuart Braem had paddled up to the men's campsite seeking assistance because he suspected that his wife, Bette, had broken a leg. He asked whether the four-man group happened to have a satellite phone.

They didn't, but they had the next-best thing, Bette quoted Bissonette as saying: "My brother-in-law is with us and happens to be a Mayo physician."

The Key brothers paddled ashore and then to the Braems' camp, where Bob triaged Bette. He determined that her ligaments were OK, but the upper tibia of her left leg was injured, he said in a phone interview.

Toting an emergency medical kit, Bob decided that she didn't need treatment, other than changing a bandage that her husband had put on her shinbone the previous day.

During a phone interview Tuesday, the 56-year-old Bette recounted the abrupt end to what had been a delightful wilderness expedition.

On Sept. 20, day five of what was to be an eight-day journey of exploring 10 lakes and traversing an equal number of portages, Bette shifted her body to the right to unload a heavy pack.

"My body twisted and contorted, and I heard a snap," Bette said, and she suspected that something had fractured in her left leg.

After wrapping her lower leg in an Ace bandage, Stuart broke camp and began paddling 3 1/2 miles across Caribou Lake.

"It was really tough for him, paddling through whitecaps," Bette recalled.

While her husband set up a new camp, she said, "Stuart had me sit in the lake to reduce swelling. I had a rough night.

"The next morning, I couldn't put weight on my leg. We thought, 'What are we going to do? We've only seen five or six people,'" and their car was several miles -- and at least three lakes and portages away, at East Bearskin Lake, she said.

"Stuart is 64 and has a heart condition, so he couldn't carry me," said Bette, who is quality and regulatory services director for Be the Match bone marrow registry in Minneapolis and whose husband is a house inspector.

Against all odds, Stuart set out in search of help, which he found about a half-mile away, at the campsite of Bissonette, the Key brothers and Nick Johnson, Bob Key's childhood friend.

"They dropped everything they were doing and came over to help us," Bette said.

After "Dr. Bob," as Bette now calls Key, checked her over, the rescuers told the Braems that they knew a shortcut through the woods. Then the Key brothers took matters into their own hands, literally.

Dr. Bob and Tim alternated carrying Bette on their backs about 1 1/2 miles through the woods to a parking lot where Johnson's dad, Larry, was to rendezvous with them and join the campers.

"We traded off," said Dr. Bob, who was ever the gentleman, refusing to guesstimate Bette's weight other than to say with a laugh, "She wasn't that bad. Some of the packs we carry are heavier than she was."

Bette herself hesitated momentarily when asked her weight, but she confided that she tips the scales at 114 pounds.

"That's one of the problems -- I'm slender, and I have brittle bones. I have broken bones," she said.

"The rescue took several hours, and I felt it was -- I'm not really a believer in miracles -- but we were indeed lucky," she said.

After the Keys drove the couple to their car, "We went straight down from the Gunflint Trail to Minneapolis," Bette said of the five-hour, 300-mile trip.

Diagnosed with a compression fracture at the top of her tibia, Bette has been navigating with a hinged knee brace. She was able to discard her cane this week and can walk short distances, but she said she is looking forward to removing the brace in a couple of weeks.

The Braems, an active couple who enjoy camping and hiking, would like to venture into the BWCA again sometime -- maybe with a satellite phone nestled among their supplies, Bette said.

The case was the most severe the 45-year-old Key has been called upon to attend to in the wild.

"I've fixed a few small cuts," he said. "I carry a little bag with sutures and bandages."

He also removed a fair number of hooks from salmon anglers' hands during a stint in Alaska as part of his Mayo-Franciscan residency, said Key, who lives in Bagley and has been a Mayo physician in Prairie du Chien for 16 years.

"I grew up in a small town, and I've always liked rural medicine," he said.

"My brother said it best: 'It's doing the right thing when you're in the right place at the right time.'"

As for the fishing action during his own BWCA expedition, Dr. Bob said, "We did very well," catching walleyes, small-mouth bass and northern pike.

Asked whether he tossed back the northerns, as a lot of anglers do because they are so bony, he replied, "Yes, and the bass, too."

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