Oct 7, 2007 2:08 pm US/Central
Heat Cuts Marathon Short; 1 Dead, Hundreds Ill
Runners Sent Back To Starting Line Midway Through Course
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
One runner in the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon is confirmed dead and hundreds were taken away in ambulances, as record high temperatures forced organizers to bring the race to an early end.
Shortly before noon, runners who had not finished yet were stopped about halfway through the course, at Cermak Road and Halsted Street, and were sent back to the starting area. Those who had passed the halfway point by noon were allowed to continue along the standard course.
The decision was made after the winners were declared.
According to Fire Commissioner Raymond Orozco Jr., the Fire Department transported 250 people from the scene. Even more runners sought shelter in cooling or misting shelters, he said. Ambulances from Chicago and from numerous suburbs were sent to a staging area near the end of the Marathon route, as repeated calls came in. At the finish, 312 people were taken to hospitals or treated at medical stations throughout the course of the marathon, according to marathon spokeswoman Marianne Caponi.
One runner died, the Cook County Medical Examiner's office confirmed.
Chad Schieber, 35, of Midland, Mich., collapsed at 1500 S. Ashland Ave., on the latter part of the course. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Jesse Brown West Side VA Hospital at 12:40 p.m., the medical examiner's office said.
An autopsy on the man is scheduled for Monday.
"Obviously very sad news, and our thoughts and prayers are with the individual's family," said Shawn Platt, senior vice president of LaSalle Bank, the marathon's sponsor.
George Chiampas, the race's medical director, said witnesses reported seeing Schieber collapse and become unresponsive.
"It sounds like he lost his pulse very fast and died on the race course," Chiampas said at a news conference after the race.
The temperature around 2:30 p.m. was 85 degress with a heat index of 88, only one degree short of tying a record.
One runner said she was not pulled off the course until Mile 23, near 35th Street and Michigan Avenue only a few miles from the finish line.
Cynthia Pekron of Elmhurst, who was running for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society Team in Training, said a police officer had been telling people that the race was canceled and to stop running in the middle of the course, but he was "one in 100 people" and many runners did not believe he was serious.
Three miles later, Pekron said, she did not hear the race pad beep to record her time, but she continued running.
Finally, at mile 23, police began to enforce the cancellation of the rest of the race, Pekron said.
"I was at mile 23, right between 23 and 24, and they were making people stop. Police were actually enforcing it. They told us, the race was canceled, 'You have to stop. You are permitted to finish the race, but you have to walk the rest of it," Pekron said.
Police cars were sent down the street for the remainder of the course to ensure that everyone walked.
Pekron said it was police, not Marathon organizers, who told her the race was canceled.
"Marathon organizers were confused as to why people weren't running, and we're almost encouraging people to run," she said.
Pekron said she wished she could have finished the race.
"I understand the concerns about people being injured and such, but I wasn't, like, stumbling and confused, and I feel like if you made it to 23, you're probably OK."
Runners and fans reported shortages of water and Gatorade along the route.
One marathon runner wrote to CBS 2 that "Every water stop was out everything." He said in an e-mail that runners had to get water from condo buildings and stores that brought out their hoses.
Mark Simpson from Clinton, Miss. wrote to CBS 2 that he brought 135 runners from Mississippi and the vast majority did not get to finish. "We trained for 9 months with many runs in the 90 degrees just fine, because we had plenty of hydration." He calls the lack of proper supplies "criminal negligence."
Lisa Maddy from Schererville, Ind. sent an e-mail to CBS 2 saying the event should have been planned better with more water and volunteers or canceled due to the predicted weather. "Chicago's bid to host the Olympics is a joke considering that the Chicago Marathon cannot even provide enough water to runners. I crossed the 13.1 mile mark at 2:44 and the water was gone. The real heroes were the spectators and the business owners who were providing water at there own cost."
Runner Nikki Sullivan said she and her "fellow runners demand an public apology for this extremely poor foresight of a 30-year event. Shame on them."
Pekron also said there were problems with water shortages.
"There were times when there wasn't water, but later a few tables down there would be water, but they were struggling to staff it." She added that she had seen tables with no water cups or no one to pour the water.
Marathon Executive Race Director Carey Pinkowski denied that there had been a shortage, and said there were adequate supplies.
The men's winners crossed the finish line around 10:10 a.m. and the women's winners crossed about 25 minutes later.
The American Red Cross of Greater Chicago activated its patient connection program Sunday afternoon to help relatives locate runners who may have been taken to a local hospital due to heat exhaustion or other injury during the marathon. Family members trying to locate a participant who may have been taken to a hospital can call the Red Cross at 312-729-6200 to find out if the Red Cross has information on their loved one.
Before the race was cut short, Patrick Ivuti of Kenya won the men's race in a photo finish with the next closest contender, the women's finish was just as dramatic and about an hour after the winners in the men's and women's races crossed the finish line, the race was ended due to the heat.
Ivuti, 29, was running alongside Jaouad Gharib of Morocco as they crossed the finish line nearly at the same time. Ivuti edged Gharib by 0.05 seconds with a time of 2:11:11.00 to Gharib's 2:11:11.05. It was the closest finish in marathon history.
Ivuti earned $125,000. Gharib receives $65,000. Gharib has won two world titles, but has yet to win another major marathon.
The finish on the women's side was equally shocking. Adriana Pirtea of Romania was running her first marathon ever, and for a long distance toward the end of the race was far ahead of all her competitors. But barely short of the finish line, last year's Marathon winner, Berhane Adere of Ethiopia, overtook Pirtea and won.
But the story of the day for the Marathon was the heat, which drove many runners -- including some past winners -- out of the race. It also brought the race to a premature end with officials stopping all runners still participating as of 11:45 a.m. and directing them to Grant Park because the rising heat posed an increasing risk to runners.
Ivuti told CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman he also struggled with the heat. "The weather was not good; it was too hot," he said.
The record for today is 86, set way back in 1947, and the hottest Chicago Marathon before this one was back in 1979, when the temperature hit 84 degrees.
For that reason, before the temperature got seriously high, runners were pacing themselves slower, as they do on the hillier course of the Boston Marathon. Once they were beyond the halfway point, the elite runners were about two minutes behind their times last year.
Six miles into the course, some of the regular runners said they were not having difficulty with the heat, but CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli met about 10 people later who called the run terrible and brutal. One man said, in jest, "This is the stupidest thing I ever did."
Kurt Fearnley of Sydney, Australia, won the wheelchair race, and while he told CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman the long, flat Chicago course was "unforgiving," he also said he was not bothered by the heat.
Runners had run the risk of heat dehydration or heat stroke, as well as hyponatremia, where runners take in too much water and flush out their sodium.
"The organizers of this race had a week to bring in more water. It's obvious that on a day like today that water intended for drinking would have been poured on the racer's heads and that perhaps triple the normal amount would have been needed," said Gerald Joyce, who was at the marathon supporting his wife. "Many people's first marathons were ruined, many foreign runners had the trip of a lifetime ruined and I think that many of the health issues that lead to the race being closed down were caused by the incompetence of the organizers."
CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman, Mike Puccinelli, Mark Malone, Pamela Jones and Adam Harrington, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
