One dead, 4 in comas after Israeli marathon race

Paramedics treat a marathon runner suffering from heat In Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, March 15, 2013. / AP Photo/Roni Schutzer

JERUSALEM An Israeli soldier died of a heat stroke Friday after completing a half-marathon in Tel Aviv, prompting Israel's minister of public security to criticize organizers for allowing the race to take place during a heat wave.

The soldier collapsed and was rushed to a hospital, but medics were unable to resuscitate him, said rescue services spokesman Zaki Heller. The race was run in temperatures around 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).

The military identified the dead soldier as Sgt. Michael Michalevitch, 29, who served in the military's canine special forces.

Four other runners who collapsed from the heat were put in medically induced comas and are on respirators at a Tel Aviv hospital, Heller said. In total, medics treated more than 50 runners at the race, he said.

Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's public security minister, said on Israel Radio that the incident was "very serious" and suggested that race organizers could be held responsible for not cancelling the race after heat was predicted.

The Tel Aviv municipality expressed regret over the death of the runner but defended its actions, saying it had followed the instructions of health officials. It postponed the full marathon of 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) initially scheduled for Friday in anticipation of the heat wave, and started the half-marathon of 21.1 kilometers (13.1 miles) earlier in the morning to avoid the hottest temperatures.

The municipality said in a statement that when the runner died, Israel's national weather service had reported only a light heat wave.

[agathege]

Everyone is responsible for their own health. 90 degrees is fine for me, where 70 might be too hot for someone else. No one was forcing them to continue running if they were too hot. Can we only have races at perfect temperatures?

[PMac13]

Dear ugly bloggers - shared negative energy and hate comes back to you three-fold.

[aubfmet]

The 1976 Boston Marathon was much hotter than this. Thermometers in Hopkinton were reading 98 degrees. It was recommended that nobody run , but everybody did.

[rwdgs]

then there's badwater...135 miles in death valley in 100+ degree weather. many if not most ultras are run in summer. and athens olympic marathon was predicted to be in the 90s, forget what it actually was.

that being sd, i'm a casual marathoner. in that i like to have fun and i don't want to hate it. some people like heat, i don't. knowing that, i would've no-showed.

[boba2222]

Stupid is as stupid does. They knew it was hot they should not have run.

[caljack430]

Yeah.... race should have definitely been post-poned, but why on earth were those people running anyway? I feel like a half intelligent person should value their own safety over finishing a half marathon. If i started feeling poor due to RUNNING IN 90 DEGREE WEATHER I think I would stop long before reaching respirator and coma level.