Officials with the Edmonton Marathon say they are pleased their emergency response plan kicked into gear quickly Sunday morning to assist a man who collapsed just metres from the finish line.
A man running in the half-marathon – a 21.1-kilometre route – collapsed about 500 metres before finishing the race. The event director said police arrived on scene extremely quickly to test the runner’s vitals and luckily, a doctor driving past the scene saw the man collapse and jumped into action.
“She saw this occur, quickly got out of the car, joined the police officer and they performed CPR,” Tom Keogh said on Monday.
“EMS arrived, dealt with the medical situation and transported the individual to hospital. From the reports we have, the individual is doing well today.”
The Edmonton Marathon requires a lot of detailed planning, which includes an emergency services plan to respond to these types of incidents. The marathon works with the City of Edmonton and emergency responders to develop the plan, which includes medical teams on bicycles and on mobile ambulances. There is also a medical team at the finish line.
“All of the medical professionals — as well as police officers throughout the course, as well as our own course managers — are on radios and we communicate constantly to an operations centre, and that too really worked well,” Keogh said.
“We plan it, we rehearse it, we go over it and we are pleased to see that it’s really working well and that’s important for us to know that, if a situation like this occurs, that all the professionals kick into place.”
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Keogh doesn’t know what caused the runner to collapse, but said it’s not the first time this has happened at the Edmonton Marathon. Just last year, Trevor Snaychuk collapsed after finishing the half-marathon. He was in cardiac arrest.
“Coming up to the finish line, it was kind of a tough go. I crossed the finish line, got my finisher’s medal and then nothing. I don’t remember anything after that,” he said.
“Several minutes later, I woke up on the pavement in front of the Shaw Conference Centre.”
Snaychuk, 30, said he was told several people came to his aid, including race volunteers and an off-duty first responder, who performed CPR on him for two minutes.
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Snaychuk was diagnosed with sudden cardiac arrest and now lives with a defibrillator inside his chest. While what he went through is very rare, according to one Edmonton cardiologist, it does happen.
“What that can do is cause arrhythmia or sudden cardiac death.”
Vo said sudden cardiac death is often caused by a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or enlargement of the heart.
“It’s very rare. It’s less than one per cent of the population,” he explained. “They inherit it genetically, they are not monitored and therefore at high risk when they do these type of endurance activities.”
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Vo said there is not a good way to screen for the condition, but urges athletes to see their doctor for a full checkup before starting any endurance training, such as marathons.
He said people shouldn’t be afraid of this condition, adding it’s all about balance.
“If you’re an athlete and you want to participate in these activities… as a lifestyle, there is a small increased risk,” he said. “It’s very low, so there is a risk, but the benefit of exercise outweighs the risk.”
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That’s the mentality Snaychuk lives by. While the experience was frightening, he returned to training in January and got right back on the race route on Sunday.
“Emotions were a bit high but you just power through. Coming up to the finish line was, of course, emotional but I was feeling good so I knew it wasn’t going to end the same way it did last year,” he said.
“I call it just a little bump in the road. I can’t let this stop me from something that I love doing.”
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