Sprinting to Help During a Heart Attack

12

The first thing Meghan Roth did when she came to in the back of an ambulance was insist that the medics let her finish the race.

It was October 11, 2021, and Roth — a standout runner who’d previously qualified for the US Olympic trials — was 7 miles into the pandemic-delayed Boston Marathon when she suddenly collapsed.

Only later would the 34-year-old from Minnesota learn the full extent of what happened: She’d gone into cardiac arrest, which could’ve proved fatal if not for the quick reby the runners and spectators who rushed to provide CPR.

From there, Roth’s focus shifted.

I need to piece things together and figure out who saved my life ,she thought.

She learned about the retired cardiac nurse, Marie Rodgers, whose Natick home she’d had the good fortune of collapsing in front of. And a young nursing student, Cameron Howe, who’d also been a spectator that day and also rushed to help. She learned of the two runners — Nick Haney and Tanner Smith — who’d stopped to assist with CPR. And the first responder, David Pai, who provided a cardiac thump to get her heart working.

Roth remained hospitalized for nearly a week after the race, and doctors implanted a small defibrillator she’ll have forever.

She has slowly regained her strength, recently running the fastest half-marathon of her life. And she briefly toyed with the idea of running this year’s Boston Marathon — which would have been her first marathon since her collapse — before a health scare put those plans on hold.

And so she is content to watch this year’s race as a spectator, somesponse

thing she’s never done. It will be her first time back in Boston since the 2021 race. It will also be a reunion of sorts.

In the weeks leading up to her arrival, she’d begun making plans to connect with the people who’d come to her aid that day. “There’s just going to be so many emotions, seeing them, and talking to them,” she says. “I don’t know all the emotions I’m going to feel, but it’s going to be a lot — in a good way.”

“It would be impossible to not feel connected to them.”