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
I've had this conversation with my cardiologist about ten times, and I think we've finally resolved it. (I have benefited from the electronic wisdom of Dr. Gull myself on this forum). If I swim, I compete. If I don't compete, I don't have tangible goals. If I don't have goals, I don't swim. If I don't swim, I don't do anything. If I don't do anything, my stress goes up, and my alcohol consumption follows. I get unhealthy quickly. Thus, I swim hard and know that I have a slightly elevated chance of a second heart attack as a result. The total package calls for the elevated risk, because of the costs associated with not taking that risk. Ultimately, a complete no-brainer.
Former Member
The point is that we have to accept a small but definite risk when we participate in vigorous (as opposed to moderate) exercise.
This is the crux of the whole issue. On average, we who are active are helping ourselves in the long run, but there is some short-term risk.
The rate of death from marathons is about 1 in 50,000. There were some well-publicized deaths among triatheletes this past year, but surprisingly USAT doesn't have a denominator (number of entrants) so we don't know the rate. It would be very hard to estimate the risk from swimming with much precision, just because risk of this (small) magnitude would take a very large sample, and of course there are many fewer masters swimmers than marathon runners. Go figure.
Former Member
Aquatic facilities should have AEDs and staff trained in their use. That is the key to surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
Former Member
Because of Lindsay’s question, I dug up the quote I remember seeing on “Risk of Death while Marathoning”. It is in the December 2008 Running World p98 with the original source being cited as the “American Journal of Medicine and Sports, 2005”.
“According to data from three large research studies dating back to the mid-1970s, the risk of dying from a heart attack in a marathon is about one in 75,000 (Twin Cities Study), one in 89,000 (London Study) or one in 126,000 (Toronto Study); the first two estimates are based on marathon medical reports, the third on newspaper reports. Your annual risk of dying in a car accident is one in 6,535.”
That's all that was said for what it's worth.
Former Member
Those statistics are misleading, since not all entrants are at equal risk. Coronary artery disease is more prevalent among men over the age of 45. Of the 38,000 runners in the NYC marathon, 25,000 were men. Of these, 40% were over the age of 45. If there were two deaths among men over the age of 45, the risk for that population was 2/10,000 or 1/5,000. And while we drive hundreds of hours annually, a marathon lasts only a few hours.
Former Member
Ian, how are you doing?
What is your SCY 50 and 100 free times these days?
Jim, I have been futzing around this year, been semi-serious at an SCM meet - 27.67 50m free, 1:03.15 100m & 31.39 50m fly. OK, at 67 you start slowing down but I should do better. The problem is that this requires work (i.e. working out more than my 3 times a week) But at least that's a lot less than for a marathon. Cheers, Ian.
Former Member
Thanks for the clarification on the stats Ian.
There is an article today on this topic in the Globe and Mail:
www.theglobeandmail.com/.../home
Unfortunately, the author falls into the false dichotomy of comparing running marathons versus complete inactivity instead of versus more moderate exercise.
One particularly interesting bit is given at the end:
Beware the final sprint
University of Toronto doctors analyzed 26 sudden cardiac deaths that occurred among 3,292,268 marathoners in the United States. They found that nearly half of the deaths happened in the final mile or shortly after the finish, suggesting that hard anaerobic exercise is about five times riskier than aerobic exercise.
I find the conclusion a bit of leap, I suspect the probability of problems in that last mile is strongly affected by whether one has run the previous 25 miles just prior, so it probably isn't a simple matter of anaerobic versus aerobic. I do wonder if there are implications for workout design though, perhaps high intensity anaerobic work at the end of a long workout is not a good idea? It is also too bad they didn't separate final mile from after the finish events.
It would be interesting if there were statistics showing if there is any correlation between different pool events and cardiac events, i.e. is the risk different for a 50 than a 1500? Pool swimming competition is very different from marathons in duration and aerobic versus anaerobic, perhaps marathons are not very relevant at all.
Although unrelated by anything more than involving stats, I was recently looking at some stats from Statistics Canada on sports participation. Apparently there are about 750,000 Canadians over the age of 15 that swim at least once per week. About 10,000 of those are registered masters. 1 in 75. If the per capita numbers hold there are about 7.5 million Americans that swim regularly, and about 46,000 registered masters, that's about 0.6% market share. One could guess that the other 99% swim for fitness, health, and relaxation instead of competition. Interestingly, relaxation was the #1 motivation given for participation in sport (all sports) in the survey. Also interesting, swimming was the number one sport among women, golf was number one among men with swimming way down the list.
I wrote a blog entry with some of the charts from the report here:
mymsc.ca/.../sports_participation_in_canada_2005
I'm with gull. Know there is a risk, make sure there is an AED in your facility, know where it is and be able to use it if needed. You might also pester your facility to make sure the AEDs are maintained, tested, etc.
Does USMS require an AED be present/available along with trained personnel as part of their meet sanctioning process?
Former Member
Because of Lindsay’s question, I dug up the quote I remember seeing on “Risk of Death while Marathoning”. It is in the December 2008 Running World p98 with the original source being cited as the “American Journal of Medicine and Sports, 2005”.
“According to data from three large research studies dating back to the mid-1970s, the risk of dying from a heart attack in a marathon is about one in 75,000 (Twin Cities Study), one in 89,000 (London Study) or one in 126,000 (Toronto Study); the first two estimates are based on marathon medical reports, the third on newspaper reports. Your annual risk of dying in a car accident is one in 6,535.”
That's all that was said for what it's worth.
The running community has always been very defensive about the risks involved in exercising. Why they have taken this stance is beyond me. I believe everyone implicitly accepts some risk. The only ones who are deterred by the reports of sudden death are likely people who are looking for an excuse anyway.
I haven't looked up the original citations that are referenced here, but there are a lot of details in study methodology that have to be considered before we believe the numbers.
I'm with gull. Know there is a risk, make sure there is an AED in your facility, know where it is and be able to use it if needed. You might also pester your facility to make sure the AEDs are maintained, tested, etc.
