Posted on 06/05/2012 6:19:50 PM PDT by presidio9
As Meghan Vogel turned for home during Saturday’s Ohio Division III girls state meet, she was in last place in the 3,200-meter race with no hope of finishing anywhere near the top. But her last-place finish became the most memorable part of the meet.
With 20 meters to go, Vogel, a junior at West Liberty-Salem High School in Urbana, was about to pass Arden McMath, a sophoomore from Arlington High School, when McMath collapsed on the track. Rather than continue running, Vogel helped McMath to her feet, placed McMath’s arm around her shoulders and carried her across the finish line.
“Any girl on the track would have done the same for me,” Vogel told ESPN.
Vogel made sure McMath crossed the finish line first and said she was surprised by the praise she received for an act of selflessness she believed was anything but extraordinary.
“It’s strange to have people telling me that his was such a powerful act of kindness and using words like ‘humanity,’” she told ESPN. “When I hear words like that I think of Harriet Tubman and saving people’s lives. I don’t consider myself a hero. I just did what I knew was right and what I was supposed to do.”
Under the rules, a runner is automatically disqualified for helping another runner during a race,
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Win loose or draw is abut how you finish and this young lady won a race.
My GRANDMOTHER wants to fly planes...
Yeah, you’re right, though it made me think, why a heart attack and not a lung collapse, for example?
I don’t get the attitude. She was already out of the race. What the hell difference did it make.
Now if she was contending for 1,2 or 3rd, then I’d agree with you. But she was in last place.
What are you looking at MAYO-NAISSE????
Some amazingly heartless comments being made in here by some folks. Seems some are upset that she didn’t step on her on the way to the finish line.
Pathetic*
* - not you presidio9. I just sent this to you since you were the OP
I have to admit that I’m somewhat amused by the whole thing, but I will say that the people taking offense to the story sound like they have probably never loved a little girl. So I feel sorry for them more than anything.
Only if he finished and went back. This stuff happens more often than you would think. Mostly in cross country and track. Not so much I team sports.
Because at every HS girls track meet I've ever been to, the runners are dropping dead of heart attacks left and right. Sometimes no one manages to finish the race.
None of my girls is going to run track if I can help it. I'm teaching them how to wrestle.
Sounds like a heat stroke, which can be life threatening. Medics should have been summoned when she collapsed.
I was just thinking about all the stories of scores getting run up in HS girls basketball games. There was a 108-3 game in Texas, a 100-0 game in Utah, another one in Michigan. I’ll bet you my car that in each case the coach was male.
Yes, my daughter and I went on a 5 mile run today. After we BOTH had heart attacks, I said NO MORE. Running kills!
Or she could have collapsed out of sheer exhaustion. Happened to me onces but after crossing the finish line.
onces=once
Of course, but when someone collapses like that, assume the worst and call the medics. She should have been moved to a cooler place, had cool compresses applied and given water if she was alert enough to drink.
I think that those who condone her behaviour are like liberals - only caring about good intentions as opposed to consequences. What if she was having issues with her heart and she killed her by dragging her across the finish?
A few years ago, 15 student athletes died from heart failure in Texas. When the 16th one who collapsed was saved by the use of an AED (automated external defibrillator) the state required an AED to be present in schools and at athletic events.
Dozens of young athlete die from heart failure in the US each year while playing or practicing.
I hope you never are at an event when an athlete drops dead. And if you are, I hope an AED is available. By the way, refs and coaches have been saved by these devices, too.
The brother of a friend died playing basketball in his mid twenties. AEDs weren’t around back then. About 50-75% of athletes who collapse from heart failure can be revived by AEDs.
The school my kids attended now has 9 of them in the school and the athletic department has enough additional ones so that every team that goes on the road takes one along.
While it may seem humorous to suggest that a young atlete might collapse from heart failure, there are dozens of families in the US each that are not amused since it happened to their kid.
Sadly, some schools do not have these devices.
Wrestlers die, too.
http://www.highschoolot.com/content/blogpost/9060782/
http://muskogeephoenix.com/local/x1253553444/Middle-school-wrestler-dies-after-practice
http://www.4hcm.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-14673.html
I think we could find an angle to compare your attitude to that of your scary “liberals” too, and do it without much effort.
There was no heart attack, no brain stroke, no broken leg, no lung collapse, get it? Just good sportsmanship.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy will drop them too.
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