Fragile thread

First there was Peckham Parkrun

Then there was Hillyfields Parkrun

1 January 2015
Day 262

Running a double Parkrun, with cycling either end and in between. The first, a fast and flat job in Peckham, took 23.27 (slow for that course). The second, my regular Hillyfields run, also slower than usual, at 24mins. Still, I'm underslept, have been drinking and eating too much. Anyway, it didn't really matter in the real world, as I soon learned.

It was at the second finishers' funnel that the holiday atmosphere came to an abrupt end. One of the runners, a man in his late 30s or early 40s, collapsed with a cardiac arrest. Two medics in the group started CPR, we called an ambulance, but the man was not breathing, his face went purple and his eyes glazed. Crouching beside him, we all willed him to breathe, to stop dying. That's what he looked to be doing. An ambulance came, but it was a long time before they could stabilised him sufficiently to get him on a stretcher. The most recent news is that he was breathing unassisted, but it took so long, what damage could have been done? It was so shocking to see a man in his prime so cut down, so close to death. We runners think we are invincible. we blog about our fitness, we take pride in our vitality. Then something like this happens, and we see we'll never outpace the inevitable. He is alive though, focus on that, he is alive, and we hope he'll run another day.