Victim In Cass Lake Boating Accident Was A Swim Coach
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Family and friends are mourning the loss of an Eden Prairie woman who died in a Fourth of July boating accident.
Brenda Larson, 50, was found unresponsive in Cass Lake on Saturday after she, a 4 year-old child and the driver were thrown out of their boat.
The driver, 45-year-old Matthew Kinghorn, was arrested on suspicion of boating while intoxicated. Jeff Larson, Brenda's husband, said that Kinghorn is his cousin.
"They always talk about bad things happening to good people, and she was one," Eden Prairie Community Center aquatics supervisor Tina Eide said.
It's Larson's swimming experience that makes her death more even more puzzling to family and friends.
Larson had been a coach for the Team Foxjet, a swimming program in Eden Prairie, since 2009.
According to her bio, she previously taught at Foss Swim School and swam in high school.
Eide met Brenda when the two of them coached for Team Foxjet together.
"She'll be on the pool deck laughing, smiling, telling jokes," Eide said. "That's what I'm going to miss the most."
As they walked into practice, the other coaches tried to make it as normal as possible. As the kids splashed, the news was making waves in the parent's room.
"There's no good way to do it, you're just telling them that their coach and somebody they liked is no longer there," said Swapnil Salunke, a swim father of three.
Lloyd Larsen is Brenda's neighbor, friend and also a fellow coach.
"It is an irony that she died in a boating accident, a boating mishap," Larsen said.
Lloyd Larsen was not related to Brenda but he was her friend and now successor. When they talked of canceling practice, Brenda's husband, Jeff, insisted.
"'Should we swim, should we go to this upcoming meet,' and he was unequivocal. He said 'Don't take the swimming away from them. Brenda wouldn't want that, we wouldn't want that,'" Larsen said.
Jeff Larson said he and his wife had gone to Cass Lake many summers over the years. He also said it was their 19-year-old son, who also teaches swimming, who pulled Brenda from the water after she was thrown off the boat.
He tried CPR before she was taken to Cass Lake Hospital and later died.
Team Foxjet practices will go on as scheduled as they prepare for a big meet this weekend. They'll be competing in honor of their coach who would want them to just keep swimming.
"She wouldn't want them to cancel just because of her, and I think they'll be swimming extra fast just to make her happy," Eide said.
Kinghorn is being held at the Beltrami County Jail. The Beltrami County Attorney's office says the case is under review pending any charges.
