Athletic training students aid marathon runners

Athletic Training Students and faculty in Heidelberg’s Athletic Training Education Program got some hands-on experience while providing a valuable service to the participants in the 31st annual Chicago Marathon earlier this month.
 

During the marathon, the group served as medical volunteers – the only out-of-state group to join hundreds of medical professionals including volunteer doctors, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and paramedics – for the event that boasted 45,000 participants who ran the traditional 26.2-mile race through downtown Chicago.

 
The day of the marathon, the group arrived at Grant Park in downtown Chicago at 4:45 a.m.  Unseasonably warm temperatures produced the type of injuries, illnesses and conditions among the participants that the students spent every day – academically and clinically – preparing to treat. The athletes included world elite, collegiate and recreational runners and even a spattering of athletes with physical disabilities in racing wheelchairs with finishing times between just over two hours and beyond eight hours.
 

Spectators described the finish line area as "organized mass chaos" as it related to the various efforts to care for the thousands of runners who crossed. The finish line and 400 yards beyond was the designated area where the volunteer medical trainers worked on a steady stream of runners from around the country and the world. The care included anything from treating minor injuries to assisting with the treatment of athletes with severe respiratory, cardiac or neuro-muscular dysfunction as a result of the stress placed on their bodies throughout the race.
 

“Serving as medical volunteers for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon was extremely productive in providing Heidelberg athletic training students and faculty first-hand exposure to emergency medicine on a grand scale,” said Trevor Bates, the director of Heidelberg’s ATEP. “Under the supervision of the faculty, these Heidelberg athletic training students were able to turn their academic knowledge into functional skills that helped real people.”

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