Severe heat affects Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon [PHOTO ESSAY]
Photos by Danielle McGotty
Roads closed with police cars diverting the flow of traffic, SCAD bus schedules altered their routes and guardrails cordoned off streets to pedestrians on Saturday morning, Nov. 7, all for the annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. Participants of the event awoke to unseasonably warm temperatures that affected the entirety of the day’s event.
The National Weather Service reported a high of 84 degrees during the marathon, the hottest Rock ‘n Roll Marathon on record. Medical staff remained on high alert throughout the day.
The race began 14 minutes late, at 7:14 a.m., and at around 9:45 a.m. Marathon Spokesman Dan Cruise said that race officials decided to divert more than 1000 runners from the full marathon to the half because of the extreme weather.
One runner, a 35-year-old male from Georgia, collapsed and later died in the hospital. The name of the runner was not released to the public, and no reports have been issued on the cause of the man’s death at this time. Officials reported that close to 2000 other participants were treated for — or hospitalized with — heat-related illnesses.
BuzzFeed reported another incident during the event where a man participating in the half marathon was injured from a fall. The man was urged not to continue the race by medical staff, even though he was less than a mile away from finishing.
Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department (SCMPD) Sgt. John Cain witnessed the fall.
“My heart was bleeding for him,” said Cain in an interview with BuzzFeed.
Cain asked the EMTs treating the man if he could walk the runner to the finish line, along the edge of Forsyth Park. They gave Cain the okay, so he helped the runner to his feet and they crossed the finish line together.
“You could almost feel the happiness coming from him,” said Cain in the same interview.
While the heat and humidity tested many of the participants, some paid dearly, while others found the course breezy and pleasant.
Erin Osment, 22, from Charlotte, NC, was the first female to cross the finish line with a completion time of one hour, 18 minutes and 51 seconds. This was Osment’s first half marathon.
“I just came out here to try and have fun,” said Osment. “I tried to run six minute miles just to see how it felt and it felt good, so that’s awesome.”
More than 20,000 people participated in this year’s Rock ‘n Roll marathon, and many were disappointed that they were not able to complete the full marathon they trained for.
In a Facebook post on the day of the event, race officials said that they sympathized with those participants, but that ultimately, their number one priority is “to maintain the safety of every runner at [these] events,” and that they will be in touch, via email, with those negatively affected.
A full list of results, along with profiles of the runners is available here.
