Crashed light aircraft pilot rescued from remote swamp

A local conservation officer who “literally gave the shirt off his back” to an accident victim who was near death from hypothermia has been honored by the Minnesota DNR. 

A total of 18 individuals and one dog were recognized by the DNR Enforcement Division in February for their lifesaving actions in 2024 and 2025—including Pelican Rapids area conservation officer Matthew Boyle.

Boyle, along with Virginia station officer Shane Zavodnik, were honored for their actions on Nov. 15, 2024. The officers responded to a call of a man trapped under his crashed light aircraft near the Eveleth airport. They trekked through rugged terrain and a half-mile spruce bog to reach the man, who had been pinned for 90 minutes and was soaked in gas.

Fortunately, the victim’s cell phone “pinged” the location, and as it turned out, the ping directed the rescuers precisely to where the accident occurred.

“He was a mile from any road. I don’t think he would have made it another hour,” said Boyle of the rescue operation. 

The man had been flying a single passenger gyro-copter type of light aircraft, and went down in a remote swamp area, said Boyle, a game warden trainee at the time.

“He was soaked in gas from head to toe. He had gone into hypothermia…And he had third-degree burns,” said Boyle, who described the trek through the northern Minnesota outback as “the most brutal walk into a swamp I had ever experienced.”

Boyle and Zavodnik lifted the aircraft off him, worked to keep him warm to stave off hypothermia, and treated him until a rescue team arrived. “I literally gave him the shirt off my own back to try to keep him warm.”

An Army National Guardsman since age 17, with law enforcement experience for both the Otter Tail and Mille Lacs County sheriff’s department, Boyle completed a 16-week DNR conservation officer academy last year. He was still an academy trainee at the time of the rescue in November 2024. He was assigned to the Pelican area as a conservation officer in December 2024. Headquarters is in Fergus Falls, but Boyle’s territory in the field stretches from the Dent area west to the North Dakota border and from rural Erhard to the Becker County line near Cormorant Village.

Also recognized with DNR lifesaving honors were conservation officers Levi Brown, Michael Cross, Andrew Dirks, Michael Fairbanks, Michael Krauel and his K9 partners Bolt, Tyler Lusignan, Patrick McGowan, David Schottenbauer, Curtis Simonson, Jacob Swedberg of the Detroit Lakes Station, Jimmy Van Asch, Brice Vollbrecht, and Ashley Whiteoak; Natural Resources pilot Grace Zeller; Forestry Division Lands Specialist Matt Boyer and civilian Kevin Quittschreiber.

Col. Rodmen Smith, Enforcement Division director, praised the group’s quick response to dangerous situations. 

“In many of these cases, we worked alongside our public safety partners and civilians in the area,” he said.