What really saddens me is that - there appears (according to the mother) to have been no medical staff - or anyone who knew how to perform CPR at the finishing line. If this is so - it reflects very badly on the professionalism of the organizers. The boy's life could have been saved.
However, let us withhold blame, we don't know the full story yet - we don't know whether the boy's heart stopped when he collasped. Was there even an ambulance that took him to the hospital? Did the ambulance or race officials have a defibrillator?
As things go in Singapore- this sort of tragedy - will most likely be buried in red tape. But I urge all runners in any (soon to happen) races - to wear a small black cloth band around their arm, to remember the dead boy and to make a protest statement if asked.
I attached the Today article here in full.
Monday, June 25, 2007
RJC athlete dies after SEA Games trials
Cheryl Ng
sports@newstoday.com.sg He had just qualified to represent Singapore in the triathlon at the South-East Asian Games in December.But moments after crossing the finish line during a time trial yesterday, 17-year-old Thaddeus Cheong collapsed unconscious. The Raffles Junior College student was rushed to Changi General Hospital. Ninety minutes later, he was pronounced dead.The time trial began at the Tanah Merah Country Club at 6.45am and saw 12 triathletes swim 1.5km, cycle 40km and then run 10km along Changi Coastal Road.Thaddeus had been with the national squad for two-and-a-half years. He came in third yesterday with a time of 2hrs 9min, booking, for the first time, his ticket to the games. The qualifying time was 2hrs 12mins.Last night, Thaddeus' mother Angeline Wee struggled to keep her composure as she told Today: "His heart had already stopped beating when we reached the hospital. "He collapsed at the end point and there was no medical help. No one knew how to do CPR."She added: "We're not blaming TAS (Triathlon Association of Singapore) but we hope that they should ensure that no one will ever experience the pain we're going through again." Mr David Hoong, honorary secretary of TAS, said no CPR was administered because they were unsure what had caused the collapse and wanted to rush Thaddeus to hospital.
sports@newstoday.com.sg
3 comments:
Sounds like another tragic case of undiagnosed long-QT syndrome.
This is what I heard and may not be totally correct. For a triathelon, the race stretches over kilometers and over a wide area including sea/pool(?) for the swimming, it is not a 1500 m race round a track. The participant can collapse anywhere and anytime during the race. Hence, it is hard to station medical care where the person collapse which can be anywhere.
Unfortunately the athlete died right at the finishing line.
Lets be practical, when the athlete was training does he have a medical team stand by? ...He could have died during training when he pushed himself, ....they did call for a ambulance....and just like any heart attack your life depends on how fast the ambulance gets there.
It is all hindsight to say the should have been medical staff at the finishing line to help him. For that matter, if he had a heart attack in the middle of the race, the medical team wouldn't have been able to make it there in time.
Luckytan, don't you think it a bit strange that there was no one at the finishing line who knew how to do CPR? Even at standard high school races- there is a group of St John's volunteers on standby to render assistance.
Questions - how long did the ambulance take to get there? Was there even a medic team on standby?
And if an ambulance was called- did anyone do anything for the victim in the meantime?
Now, esp. towards the end of the run, where many of the participants are practically running on empty, think about it, surely you can see it makes SOME sense to have a medic team ready. You can see them at (Western) events. Why is that so? I'll say no more.
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