By Roberta Macinnis
The Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2006 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
With a two-way radio clipped near her shoulder and what looks like a first-aid kit strapped on her back, Carol Gradziel could be mistaken for a medic. She acts like one as she slowly pedals her bike along Allen Parkway during the Law Week Fun Run, watching racers carefully as they stream past.
But she’s not here to treat minor — or even major — medical emergencies. Except one.
She’s here to save a life.
The pack doesn’t hold Band-Aids to cover blisters or ointments to soothe road rash. It is an automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable version of the machine that can restore an irregular heartbeat with a jolt of electricity.
Gradziel, a custom home builder and runner, has never had to use the device during the seven years she’s been part of the CPR/AED team that the Houston Area Road Runners Association provides at more than 20 area races each year. No one on the team has.
But someday they will, says Dr. Bob Hoekman, HARRA’s medical director and the team’s leader.
“Every year, people die at road races. People who exercise have a lower risk of cardiac death, but an awful lot of people come into running at middle age not having been in shape,” Hoekman said.
“Many of the people who are running in our races have significant cardiac risk factors,” he added.
While exercise cuts the chance of a heart attack, the risk of sudden death, however small, jumps 700 percent during intensive exercise, Hoekman said.
Fit people can have heart attacks, too. Jim Fixx, who helped popularize jogging with The Complete Book of Running in 1977, is the most well-known example. He died during a run in 1984; his family had a long history of heart disease.
Hoekman, a retired orthopedic surgeon and veteran runner, came up with the idea of providing life-saving cardiac equipment at area events after he realized that emergency medical personnel - and their life-saving equipment - tend to be stationed at the start and finish lines of most races.
“You must be out with the runners in order to get to them quickly enough,” Hoekman said.
So Hoekman approached HARRA in the fall of 1999 about creating a CPR/AED team. His goal was to have a defibrillator within three minutes of all runners at any given point of a race.
Hoekman felt so strongly about it that he offered not only to train the volunteers but also to pay for the life-saving equipment.
The team started with one defibrillator and 19 volunteers and has grown to three machines and 71 runners.
Nine CPR/AED volunteers meet in a parking lot near the race course before the start of the Law Week Fun Run. Each one wears a bright gold T-shirt with the team’s logo. “Dr. Bob,” as Hoekman is called, gives an AED unit to Gradziel, Noah Matthews and Trish Sullivan and hands out two-way radios to everyone, including Bessie Wright, who’s riding for the first time. Each runner also carries a cell phone so he can call the race EMT or 911 if he needs to.
After Hoekman gives them last-minute instructions, they pedal out of the lot and spread along Allen Parkway to wait for the runners.
When the racers start arriving, the team starts cycling, being careful to keep themselves evenly spaced along the road. It’s a cool morning; everyone looks good. But Gradziel stays alert.
Heart-attack symptoms - chest discomfort, upper-body pain, shortness of breath, nausea or lightheadedness - can be vague. They also sound a bit like what a racer putting in a hard effort might experience.
Which is why the CPR/AED team members pay attention.
“How many people do you know who are going to stop if they feel a twinge of something?” Gradziel said.
While the CPR/AED team has a specific mission, that fact isn’t apparent to most of the racers.
Team members often get asked for aspirin, Vaseline or even directions.
Team members also find themselves helping in unexpected ways. Hoekman remembers when a water moccasin slithered onto the course at a Bayou Bash Relay in Sugar Land. It refused to move, so a CPR/AED volunteer stood near the snake to direct runners around it.
The race is winding down, and Gradziel has stopped along the course for a moment when her two-way radio crackles. A runner is reported down several blocks from the finish. A few minutes later, it turns out he simply took a hard fall.
The team waits for the last runners and walkers to clear Allen Parkway, then Hoekman gives them the OK to cycle back to their cars.
Everyone’s smiling. It has been another quiet race.