Is this an alarm that we should swim more to strengthen our hearts? Though similar tragedies happened to swimmers in the past, too, I believe. Seems all are in their late 50's?
News from
www.newsday.com/.../ny-nyrun0312133574nov03,0,6679842.story
Marathon runner dies after collapsing at finish line
BY DANIEL EDWARD ROSEN9:32 PM EST, November 2, 2008
A 58-year-old runner who had just finished the New York Marathon Sunday collapsed at the finish line after going into cardiac arrest and later died at a local hospital, police said.
Carlos Jose Gomes, of Sao Paolo, Brazil, was pronounced dead at Lenox Hill Hospital at about 5:20 p.m., police said. He had fallen ill after he crossed the finish line of the 26.2 mile race near the intersection of 81st Street and Central Park West.
Two other people suffered cardiac arrest Sunday while running in the race, police said.
A 59-year-old man collapsed in the middle of the Queensboro Bridge, police said. A fellow runner stopped and administered CPR until two emergency medical technicians arrived.
The runner was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was listed as critical but stable, according to one of the EMTs.
Jean-Louis Maubaret, 59, a French national, was running alongside his wife across the Queensboro Bridge between the 15th and 16th mile of the race when he collapsed, unconscious and not breathing, according to EMT Salvatore Sangeniti.
Sangeniti, 47, of the New York Fire Department EMS Division 4, was crossing the bridge from the Manhattan side when he and his partner, Amanda Wong, received a radio call about the runner. They reached the middle of the bridge to find another runner performing CPR.
Sangeniti, of Centereach, said he placed a defibrillator on Maubaret's chest. After one shock, he said, the runner regained consciousness and resumed breathing.
The runner who performed CPR returned to the race once he saw that Maubaret had regained consciousness, Sangeniti said.
Another marathoner suffered cardiac arrest on East 107th Street yesterday afternoon. The man, whose name was not immediately known, had collapsed and was not breathing, according to an FDNY spokesman. EMTs performed CPR as he was rushed by ambulance to Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Former Member
just curious, but what does this have to do with swimming?:hijack:
Sudden cardiac death in middle aged athletes seems pretty relevant to this forum.
- You are doing yourself more good than harm by exercising (duh).
Absolutely. Moderate intensity aerobic exercise lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease.
- The people that die during marathons (seems to be almost one a year during the Chicago marathon) probably either prolonged their lives by running OR had a genetic condition of which they were unaware.
Not exactly. The usual cause of sudden cardiac death in middle aged athletes is atherosclerosis, an acquired disease for which heredity is just one of many risk factors. And while exercise certainly reduces your risk of heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes, it has not been established that your life expectancy will be prolonged.
- Your chances for living through a heart attack are dramatically increased if your heart is as healthy as it can be through exercise and diet choices
Your chances of avoiding a heart attack are increased through exercise and diet. Your chances of surviving a heart attack depend on how quickly you receive medical attention. Prompt defibrillation, if necessary, and rapid reperfusion are the key elements. Time is muscle.
Ian, how are you doing? We miss our Canadian role model, and by we, I mean me, and perhaps many others, too, but definitely me.
What is your SCY 50 and 100 free times these days?
Since my wife ran the NYC Marathon this Sunday & finished (alive, thank goodness) - 25th in her age group without her normal marathon training, I've been perusing the aftermath articles.
I read somewhere the odds of dying in a marathon are about 1 in 100,000 (depending on whose statistics you take) vs 1 in 6,500 of being killed in a car accident (during the same period of time, I assume).
The NYC marathon 'instruction handbook' has quite a bit on the dangers of taking anti-inflamatories close to running time (before & after).
The reaction to the deaths I heard from most runners was a variation on "these guys would have died the next time they exerted themselves, shoveling snow or whatever."
Ian.
Gull, just for the record, are you saying that the majority of cardiac arrest deaths in endurance exercise events are triggered by clots?
In middle aged athletes, the answer is yes--if by "clots" you are referring to the sequence of atherosclerosis, plaque rupture and thrombosis. That is the current thinking, supported by published autopsy studies.
Jim,
Do you have any sources you could link me to that discuss the nitroglycerine protocol for tendonitis (or tendonopathies)? I've been kicking only the last several weeks due to right shoulder flare up and I don't want to rely on NSAIDS for a variety of reasons.
As always, your posts are fantastic, either very informative or very funny (sometimes both at the same time).
Ian,
Nice to see that your "futzing" has you within .62 of the world record in the 50.
Rich
Hi, Rich. Thanks for the nice words. I originally stumbled upon nitroglycerine patches as a possible treatment of tennis elbow, but I didn't actually try these (winter layoff followed by spring racquet change seemed to cure the problem). At the ACSM conferences last summer, some docs told me they do use these for shoulders sometimes, too. I came across the following citation:
Justin A. Paolini, MBBS, PhD, et al. Topical Glyceryl Trinitrate Application in the Treatment of Chronic Supraspinatus Tendinopathy. In The American Journal of Sports
Medicine. June 2005. Vol. 33. No. 6. Pp. 806-813.
I don't know how effective these are, but I would imagine most good orthopedic docs--especially those with swimming backgrounds--would know. Tom--Jaegermeister--is a very knowledgable doc at Mayo. Tom, if you read this, could you ask some of your colleagues?
If you don't know Rich, I am sure you know the Legend of Rich. I am pretty sure that the Smithsonian and the International Swimming Hall of Fame have already begun bickering about which institution gets first dibs on his body when, in 60 or 70 years, he finally passes on to the next world. In any event, we need to do everything in our capacities to keep Mr. Abrahams in full sprinting inspirational mode for as long as possible!
He is, if anything, to our nation what Ian Smith is to Canada!
And that, my good doctor friend, is saying something!
I would guess that those statistics would be more clearly stated as 1 in 100,000 deaths occur in a marathon while 1 in 6,500 deaths are due to car accidents. That is quite different from the odds of dying in a marathon are 1 in 100,000 as the odds of dying in a marathon are near zero if you don't participate in marathons. If it were the case that 1 in 100,000 people in the population participate in marathons then that stat would say that virtually all people who participate in marathons die in them. I would guess the participation rate is higher so the odds are lower. I'm just saying that I don't think the stats lead to the conclusions you want to draw.
I also question the logic behind saying that those people would have died the next time they shoveled snow anyway, that presupposes that the risk of dying is unrelated to the intensity of the stress placed on the body, since running a fast marathon is a fairly extreme stress there is a good chance that some of those runners would never have encountered a similar stress in their regular lives and some of them would have lived for many more years. I am in turn presupposing that some people are in a state where moderate stress won't trigger a problem while an extreme stress will.
Since my wife ran the NYC Marathon this Sunday & finished (alive, thank goodness) - 25th in her age group without her normal marathon training, I've been perusing the aftermath articles.
I read somewhere the odds of dying in a marathon are about 1 in 100,000 (depending on whose statistics you take) vs 1 in 6,500 of being killed in a car accident (during the same period of time, I assume).
The NYC marathon 'instruction handbook' has quite a bit on the dangers of taking anti-inflamatories close to running time (before & after).
The reaction to the deaths I heard from most runners was a variation on "these guys would have died the next time they exerted themselves, shoveling snow or whatever."
Ian.
I do not agree with the statement that the runners would have died the next time they exerted themselves. The point is that we have to accept a small but definite risk when we participate in vigorous (as opposed to moderate) exercise.
