Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Sad day

The runner who collapsed in Toronto during the marathon died, The Toronto Star reported today:

Running was David Youkhana's passion.

The 65-year-old Toronto man always took good care of himself and liked to volunteer, but three years ago he started to do them together.

He began running for a cause.

"He loved to do charity events, he loved to run for a cause," his daughter Nahrain Sciulli said yesterday.

Youkhana collapsed at the start of Sunday's Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and died at St. Michael's Hospital.

Youkhana's elder daughter said he began running marathons a few years ago even though he'd had a mild heart attack 11 years ago. He was careful about his health and made a point of meeting with his doctor before a race to get the green light, she said.

And he was proud when he achieved his running dreams.

"After turning his marathon running dream into a reality, he always came back and told us that, `I did it,'" said Evelyn Colalillo, Youkhana's younger daughter.

"We all are going to miss him for the rest of our lives," she said.


5 comments:

Marky Mark said...

That is very very sad.

Overall the way you have to look at these tragedies is that people at risk who run are more likely to improve their odds and reduce their risks than if they didn't run. In this case it sounds like it happened early on, so (while I'm no MD) it doesn't sound like the guy had time to have put himself at risk with over-exertion. In fact he seemed to have been experienced at running in a race environnement. Sometimes it's just going to happen when it happens.

I'm thinking about my next goal but it may be that I opt to do a marathon at a heart healthy pace rather than going for a sub two hour half if that means going too fast for me.

But today my thoughts are really for this guy and his family.

Sonia said...

Yep very sad... from the article he didn't look careless so I guess when you name is called you have to go...

Arcane said...

That's so sad. It seems that Toronto has had an unfortunate passing every year for the past couple of years.

yumke said...

My thoughts are with the family as well.

Anonymous said...

My thoughts & prayers are out to his family. But just a thought.. i actually live in a condo right near where he collapsed and watched the response...i found it to be very slow. I was watching the response time for EMS to come and i didn't time it but it was at least 7-10 min...and i am in medicine and know that is a critical time if there was cardiac arrest. There were people that were doing CPR but i am not sure of what there qualifications were. Should there have been a more rapid response? That morning there were 2 races, and i know that there was very little access to the lakeshore/bay area.