Runner performed life-saving CPR during half-marathon. Then he finished the race and did it again.

 

Zulekha Nathoo

USA TODAY 
December 14, 2022

The biggest concern for Dr. Steve Lome before starting the Monterey Bay Half Marathon along the California coast last month was being able to keep up with his teenage kids beside him.

But the cardiologist would soon face a life-or-death situation around mile 3 of the 13.1 mile race.

"Somebody right in front of me collapsed," Lome said. "I saw him go down and it was pretty clear to me that it was not just somebody who tripped and fell or somebody who fainted. It was a very sudden collapse."

The man on the ground was 67-year-old Gregory Gonzales, a Washington state Superior Court judge. Gonzales said he felt fine even in the moments right before. He'd trained for the race and was so at ease that day, his only worry was nabbing a good parking spot.

"I believe we went up an incline," said Gonzales. "I thought to myself, 'Oh my gosh, it's downhill for a little bit, great!' That's all I remember."

Lome says Gonzales hit his head on the pavement when he fell. Lome rushed over and started CPR with the help of a few passersby. 

"The biggest concern is that, having no blood flow to the brain, you can get some permanent brain injury," said Lome. "That's what we want to avoid at all costs."

He estimates they were doing chest compressions for maybe six minutes when Gonzales was defibrillated. Gonzales says he woke up in the ambulance like nothing had happened, except for soreness in his ribs. He was told it was from the prolonged CPR.

"I'm glad I have those chest fractures," said Gonzales. "I'll take anything because that saved me."

Once the ambulance left, Lome was a little rattled but decided to continue the race.

 He had lost about 15 minutes and could make some of it back, even if his kids were farther ahead now.

He got on his cellphone, alternating between running and walking, just to make sure the hospital where Gonzales was headed knew what had taken place at the scene. He says that can make a difference to a patient's care.

He eventually made it past the finish line and threw his hands up in the air to celebrate the accomplishment, but the joy was short-lived.

"I heard somebody say, 'We need some help over here,'" Lome recalled. "Another person was down, had a head wound and was completely unresponsive. No pulse. No breathing."

Michael Heilemann, the 56-year-old runner on the ground, said he started to feel dizzy about 10 steps after the finish line.

"I grabbed onto the rail and I was like, 'Oh man, I must have pushed a little too hard,'" said Heilemann.

That's the last he remembers of the event.

Once again, Lome was doing CPR. He says during his 12-year career, he's seen hundreds of cardiac arrests. But they've always been in the hospital, with medical staff around him. He's never had to use his CPR training outside his shift, let alone twice in one day.

Instances of heart attacks at half-marathons and marathons are rare. A 2012 study found that out of 10.2 million runners in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010, 59 experienced cardiac arrests during a race.

What's also rare, though, is survival if it happens: 71% didn't make it.
Heilemann, who lives in San Anselmo, California, calls it "super crazy fortuitous" that Lome happened to be right behind him when he hit the ground. He remembers seeing the ambulance that carried Gonzales away near the beginning of the race and later realized that because of Gonzales's cardiac arrest, Lome was delayed.

"Otherwise, Dr. Lome would've been way ahead of me," Heilemann said.

Both Heilemann and Gonzales experienced blockages which led to the cardiac arrests and got stents in their coronary arteries to improve blood flow. Lome says he hopes it encourages other people to pay closer attention to their own heart health. And to learn CPR.

Lome went to visit both men in the hospital the following day. He asked Heilemann if he had received a medal for the race. When Heilemann said no, Lome gave one to him.

"I didn't know at the time that it was his medal," Heilemann said. "He certainly deserves it more than I do."

Lome, Heilemann and Gonzales are keeping in touch and plan to race together at the same half-marathon next year.

"He could take good care of us as we finish the race," Gonzales laughed. Then he paused a moment, overcome with emotion.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't have tears of joy. Absolute joy. I'm here with a second chance at this life."

2-Minute Bursts of Movement Can Have Big Health Benefits

 2-Minute Bursts of Movement Can Have Big Health Benefits

A new study confirms that you don’t have to do a hard workout to reap the longevity rewards of exercise.

By Dani Blum  New York Times

Dec. 8, 2022

Dashing up the stairs to your apartment, weaving between commuters as you dart toward the train — those small snippets of exercise, if they’re intense enough, can add up, according to a new study. The paper is among the first to examine what many exercise scientists have long hypothesized: A little bit of physical activity goes a long way, even movement you might not consider a workout.

The paper, published today in Nature Medicine, shows that tiny spurts of exercise throughout the day are associated with significant reductions in disease risk. Researchers used data from fitness trackers collected by UK Biobank, a large medical database with health information from people across the United Kingdom. They looked at the records of over 25,000 people who did not regularly exercise, with an average age around 60, and followed them over the course of nearly seven years. (People who walked recreationally once a week were included, but that was the maximum amount of concerted exercise these participants did.)

Those who engaged in one or two-minute bursts of exercise roughly three times a day, like speed-walking while commuting to work or rapidly climbing stairs, showed a nearly 50 percent reduction in cardiovascular mortality risk and a roughly 40 percent reduction in the risk of dying from cancer as well as all causes of mortality, compared with those who did no vigorous spurts of fitness.

The new research is part of a long tradition of research into quick blasts of exercise, usually with traditional workouts, like running on a treadmill or using an elliptical trainer at the gym. Interval training, which means engaging in short stretches of increased power or speed during a longer workout, has long been popular in the athletic world, said Jamie Burr, an associate professor of human health and nutritional sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario who was not involved with the research.

One 2020 study linked four-minute bursts of exercise with longer life spans; another in 2019 found that climbing stairs for 20 seconds, multiple times a day, improved aerobic fitness. And still others have found that repeating just four-second intervals of intense activity could increase strength or counteract the metabolic toll of sitting for long stretches of time.

“Intensity is very effective at building muscle and stressing the cardiovascular system,” said Ed Coyle, a professor of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas who has researched intense bursts of exercise. Quick blasts of vigorous exercise, performed repeatedly with short rest periods, can increase oxygen uptake and keep cardiac arteries from clogging, he said, as well as power the heart to pump more blood and function better overall.

The new study, however, shows that the average person doesn’t need to go out of their way to identify those small spikes in activity; everyday movements, intensified, can be enough. And because they collected data from trackers that participants wore on their wrists, rather than questionnaires, which some exercise studies rely on, the researchers were able to analyze the impact of minute movements.

“It really just emphasizes how little vigorous physical activity can be extremely beneficial,” said Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario who was an author on the study.

Fitness researchers lump exercise intensity into three categories, said Emmanuel Stamatakis, a professor at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and the lead author of the new study. If you can sing while doing the activity, that’s light exercise. If you can’t sing, but you can speak comfortably, that’s moderate. Dr. Stamatakis recommended movements that are so vigorous you can only speak a few words, or none at all, after 30 seconds or so.

For those who exercise regularly, you can tap into some of the benefits of short bursts by adding a sprint into your run or bike ride, Dr. Burr said. “Even a few bouts in someone who’s well trained can add a little spice to it,” he said.

Dr. Stamatakis also offered a few ways for people to incorporate small bouts of movement into their lives. If you have a roughly half mile-long walk — for example, from your apartment to the grocery store — you don’t need to sprint the entire time, he said, but accelerate your pace for a few hundred feet two or three times over the course of your walk. Instead of taking the elevator, opt for the stairs. As long as you go up more than one or two flights, that will count as vigorous activity. Carrying roughly five percent of your body weight for a minute or two can also qualify, like hauling a large backpack, he added. And any kind of brief, fast uphill walking can also provide a short spurt of intense exercise.

“It doesn’t have to be planned throughout your day — you’re playing with your kids, you can engage with them in a more vigorous manner,” Dr. Gibala said. “You’re bringing your groceries out from the car, you can pick up the pace. You can say: these are my activities of daily living, I can huff and puff a bit while I’m doing this.”