Caroline Muir
| Letter to the editor
Re: “Witnesses, runners question emergency response time in Nashville marathon death,” The Tennessean, May 1.
I was one of the runners in the St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Series Nashville Marathon on April 27.
Joey Fecci was one of the racers I was “chasing” during the race. Although I never met him before, it’s just something I do in a long race.
I just knew him as the guy in the white “real AF” shirt running a similar pace as me.
When he went down there were no doctors in sight. He was ahead of me in the park. We were screaming for a doctor and I raced over to see if I needed to assist.
When I got to him there were runners already doing CPR. More runners came up and tried to assist stating they knew CPR.
One of the runners flagged down a guy on a bike and told him to find a doctor. I called 911. There are several more details to this traumatic event, but the reality is that it took several minutes for medics to get there and the ambulance followed shortly after.
Before the medics arrived, one of the runners doing CPR screamed out how we needed a medic and he needed an AED (Automated External Defibrillator).
While we waited and runners performed CPR, more of us surrounded him and prayed, some of us holding hands and some on their knees.
Some runners ripped off his bib to see if there was emergency information on the back. It was the most terrible and traumatic experience I’ve ever been a part of.
The statement by race organizers put out saying Joey “received urgent medical attention by an on-site medical team” is taking zero responsibility. There were several of us there. We know what happened.
We need to protect runners in the future. We need to do it for Joey. I don’t know if it would have made a difference in the outcome, but the statement is misleading. They are staying he received urgent care from their doctors and he did not. It was runners who stopped to try desperately to help him.
Caroline Muir, Jacksonville, Florida 32224
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