ST MICHAEL, Minn. — For many kids, the excitement of a school bus ride home begins to wear off a few days into a new year.

For 5-year-old Temi Adebisi and her family, it’s still a moment worth celebrating to the max.

“Hi Temi! Hello!” said Toyin Adebisi, who wrapped her daughter up in a massive hug when she stepped off the bus last week. “Welcome home!”

It’s been a few weeks since Temi’s first bus ride and a few months since she was cleared to return home following a long-awaited heart transplant, but her excitement has yet to fade.

“She’s so much more active than before, just so much happier,” said Temi’s older brother, Akorede Adebisi. “I’m just so happy about it.”

Her sibling’s hearts are full because their 5-year-old sister is finally free to be a kid again after spending nearly a quarter of her life tethered to a reality most adults would struggle to cope with.

“My sister is doing well after she left the hospital,” said her older sister, Ireoluwa Adepbisi. “She was living in there for a year until she finally came out.”

Temi’s stay at Children’s Minnesota began in March of 2023, following a sudden and life-threatening diagnosis.

“The medical word we use is dilated cardiomyopathy,” Dr. Adam Putschoegl said. “That’s really just a big heart that’s not squeezing well.”

Fortunately, the Ventricular Assist Device helped buy Temi valuable time as she awaited a new heart.

“It’s basically an artificial pump that sits outside of her body, to help to support her heart,” Dr. Putschoegl said. “If she didn’t have the device she probably wouldn’t survive.”

But that lifeline could only be unplugged for 20 minutes at a time, meaning she was stuck in the hospital until they could find a new heart.

KARE11 first shared Temi’s story in March, as Temi marked a full year living, and waiting inside the hospital.

In June, Temi’s parents finally received the life-saving call they had been hoping and praying for.

“The call came in the middle of the night,” said Toyin Adebisi. “I was so excited I started having heart palpitations. Then I started crying.” 

“I heard (my mom) screaming and crying and then I burst out of my room, and I just saw her on the phone and I was like what’s wrong?'” Akorede Adebisi said. “She was like, ‘Temi is coming home. Temi is getting a heart!’ I burst into tears. I started jumping everywhere. I was so happy. I couldn’t believe it.”

“It was multiple, multiple joy, multiple blessings for us,” said Temi’s father, Abi Adebisi.

One of those blessings is reflected in a message Temi left to her old heart in the hours before her transplant.

“I will miss you so much,” Toyin said, reading from an inscription titled “My beautiful old heart” that was dictated by her daughter. “My old best friend. I will love you always in my memory. I have a new best friend.”

Speaking of that new best friend, Temi has another heartfelt message to her daughter, and their family.

“I love you,” she said. “Thank you.”

“We are praying for them always,” Abi said. “Because what they did it’s so rare… and huge. We’re still looking forward to meeting them one day.”

“We would love to tell them thank you again,” Toyin said. ” They are our hero because without them we would not have Temi.”

Just one week after her transplant Temi was on the road home from the hospital, following a very special send off parade from her care team at Children’s Minnesota.

“I still remember that day,” Toyin said. “I was crying. I was crying. It was tears of joy. That finally, the storm is over.” 

“I was like super duper happy, happy, happy,” Temi said.

In the two months since she was discharged, Temi and her family have moved into a new home in a new neighborhood. Add in her first few weeks of kindergarten and it’s easier to understand why the celebrations continue.

“It’s just joy, joy, joy,” Toyin said. “And it’s so beautiful.”

MILLE LACS, Minn. — Mille Lacs Lake is known for many things.

As Minnesota’s second-largest lake, Mille Lacs is a premier destination for fishing enthusiasts, averaging about 2.5 million angler hours annually.

Except with more tourists, comes more litter. 

The popularity of ice fishing in particular has quickly grown in recent years with better technology,  equipment, and wheelhouses. With the increased activity comes more pressure on the natural resources including an increase in garbage and litter left on the ice.

“If no one is cleaning that up, it continues to re-circulate in our lake and degrade in ways we really don’t want it to,” says Keep It Clean Coalition member Ann Brucciani Lyon. 

About 30 lakes are now part of that campaign, including Mille Lacs. The coalition also helped pass a new law during the 2023 legislative session. It makes it clear trash needs to be taken off the ice and disposed of properly. It also gives DNR conservation officers more muscle in ensuring visitors do so, including issuing a $100 fine.

“I then thought, if we’ve taken steps to help decrease the amount of garbage that’s being left on the ice or going in the lake, how do we assess how serious the trash problem is underwater,” said Brucciani Lyon. “I did some digging and found Colin’s number.”

Colin West started the nonprofit Clean Up The Lake that’s well-known for performing conservation dives in the Sierra Nevada around Lake Tahoe that focus on submerged litter clean-up. 

The wine connoisseur turned self-professed underwater garbage man and his scuba divers just completed two weeks of pilot research to gain insight about submerged litter and its movement around Mille Lacs. The project was funded by the Clean Water Land and Legacy Amendment.

“It’s an assessment, if you will, of what is going on under the surface,” said West. “From a submerged litter standpoint, this is looking a bit better than we thought.”

The extensive analysis included 15 sites on Mille Lacs and 12 surveys with scuba divers using an underwater remote-operated vehicle in some of the most heavily fished areas of the lake. They also weighed and documented everything they found.

“It’s just a new experience every time you’re underwater,” said lead diver Shawn Louth, who says the crew found heavy items that had been submerged for decades, including wheels, cinderblocks, anchors and glass. 

The organization also discovered lightweight litter is pushed to shore because the lake is so shallow. That included aluminum cans, fishing line and shotgun shells.

By comparison, in the alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada, litter becomes trapped on steep underwater shelves near shore.

“I’ve been down to 38 degrees before and that’s where every 30 seconds I’m looking at my volunteers, saying are you cold, are you good and as long as we’re communicating that, it’s fairly safe,” said Louth.

He says the most interesting things his team discovered includes a gun, Indigenous canoes and even liquor bottles from the 1800s. Louth and his team mark the location of the items with GPS and report them to the proper authorities. 

The group’s next steps are to analyze all the data it has collected and to document those findings in a detailed report that will include future recommendations for litter mitigation.

“For some reason we have groups around the world paying attention to marine litter, which is devastating and important to protect our marine life, but what about the water we’re putting in our own bodies,” said West. “I want to know that the water I’m drinking is safe and good and protected.”

The team is now considering coming back to Mille Lacs in the spring and putting snorkelers in the water right after the ice melts. They will focus on cleaning up the lightweight litter along the shoreline. 

MILLE LACS, Minn. — Mille Lacs Lake is known for many things.

As Minnesota’s second-largest lake, Mille Lacs is a premier destination for fishing enthusiasts, averaging about 2.5 million angler hours annually.

Except with more tourists, comes more litter. 

The popularity of ice fishing in particular has quickly grown in recent years with better technology,  equipment, and wheelhouses. With the increased activity comes more pressure on the natural resources including an increase in garbage and litter left on the ice.

“If no one is cleaning that up, it continues to re-circulate in our lake and degrade in ways we really don’t want it to,” says Keep It Clean Coalition member Ann Brucciani Lyon. 

About 30 lakes are now part of that campaign, including Mille Lacs. The coalition also helped pass a new law during the 2023 legislative session. It makes it clear trash needs to be taken off the ice and disposed of properly. It also gives DNR conservation officers more muscle in ensuring visitors do so, including issuing a $100 fine.

“I then thought, if we’ve taken steps to help decrease the amount of garbage that’s being left on the ice or going in the lake, how do we assess how serious the trash problem is underwater,” said Brucciani Lyon. “I did some digging and found Colin’s number.”

Colin West started the nonprofit Clean Up The Lake that’s well-known for performing conservation dives in the Sierra Nevada around Lake Tahoe that focus on submerged litter clean-up. 

The wine connoisseur turned self-professed underwater garbage man and his scuba divers just completed two weeks of pilot research to gain insight about submerged litter and its movement around Mille Lacs. The project was funded by the Clean Water Land and Legacy Amendment.

“It’s an assessment, if you will, of what is going on under the surface,” said West. “From a submerged litter standpoint, this is looking a bit better than we thought.”

The extensive analysis included 15 sites on Mille Lacs and 12 surveys with scuba divers using an underwater remote-operated vehicle in some of the most heavily fished areas of the lake. They also weighed and documented everything they found.

“It’s just a new experience every time you’re underwater,” said lead diver Shawn Louth, who says the crew found heavy items that had been submerged for decades, including wheels, cinderblocks, anchors and glass. 

The organization also discovered lightweight litter is pushed to shore because the lake is so shallow. That included aluminum cans, fishing line and shotgun shells.

By comparison, in the alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada, litter becomes trapped on steep underwater shelves near shore.

“I’ve been down to 38 degrees before and that’s where every 30 seconds I’m looking at my volunteers, saying are you cold, are you good and as long as we’re communicating that, it’s fairly safe,” said Louth.

He says the most interesting things his team discovered includes a gun, Indigenous canoes and even liquor bottles from the 1800s. Louth and his team mark the location of the items with GPS and report them to the proper authorities. 

The group’s next steps are to analyze all the data it has collected and to document those findings in a detailed report that will include future recommendations for litter mitigation.

“For some reason we have groups around the world paying attention to marine litter, which is devastating and important to protect our marine life, but what about the water we’re putting in our own bodies,” said West. “I want to know that the water I’m drinking is safe and good and protected.”

The team is now considering coming back to Mille Lacs in the spring and putting snorkelers in the water right after the ice melts. They will focus on cleaning up the lightweight litter along the shoreline.