Man Down - Finish Photos Tell The Story

As I mentioned in my race report from the Brooklyn Half, I had some pretty solid tunnel vision going on as I focused my way toward the finish line on the Coney Island boardwalk.  But once the race photos were released, it opened up a whole other story that took place in those closing seconds, all of which is documented in my finish line photos.

To give a bit of a back story, as we were closing in, I vaguely remember seeing a man to my side almost reaching toward the finish line, when it appeared he had a little too much forward lean going on and he lost his balance about 20 yards before the finish line and he went down (looks like he was fine thankfully).  I remember seeing something out of the corner of my eye and shortly after I crossed the finish line, I remembered hearing medical staff calling for a wheelchair.  I nearly forgot about this until I happened to notice something unusual in the background of my finish line photos.  So the below sequence was captured over the 3 seconds of my crossing the finish line. 

Heading down the boardwalk toward the finish

At the finish, but the girl in above photo turned back to the man that went down

You can see the girl's back facing the finish, heading to the down man

Down man is trying to get up, while another runner plows into the girl

Runner in red and man down trying to recover, guy in green headband might have heard the commotion

Runner in red still losing his balance, man down still getting up

Runner in red starting to recover, as is man down

Runner in red wondering what the heck just happened

Runner in red recovered enough to finish, girl and help attend to man down

Runner in red still wondering what the heck happened, people helping man down back up

These were all the photos I was able to see, since I would have to know the last names of the bibs shown in the photos to search for them, thus preventing my search for what else happened.  I hope everyone ended up ok, but it was pretty heroic for the girl in white to stop just moments of the finish to go help the man that fell.   Pretty cool that the photos tell the story. 

However, I should also point out, that turning around in the closing moments of a race (luckily it wasn't that crowded yet) is kind of dangerous.  Both she and the guy in red are lucky that nobody was injured.  Most runners are at a nearly full sprint, so to have a collision at that point has got to be pretty painful.  Just goes to show that you never know what is going to happen.