Cleveland Marathon medical team ready to respond to any emergency

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Thousands of people will be in downtown Cleveland, Sunday, either participating in the Cleveland Marathon or cheering those along the way.

[00:00:07]>> It's such a fun, beautiful time. You're finishing downtown. And some may even have to stop by this tent.

[00:00:13]>> have stretchers, we have wheelchairs.

[00:00:14]Where the responsibility of saving a life is taken seriously.

[00:00:18]>> We have all um the equipment that we would need to provide um resuscitative care to somebody, right? University Hospitals Dr. Jeffrey Luck calls the shots, serving as the medical director for the Cleveland Marathon.

[00:00:32]>> We um prepare um for several months leading up to this event. Um on the medical side at least for um any illness or injury that may occur from the marathon. With the help of over 100 medical providers of various levels, they will have fixed and mobile assets.

[00:00:49]We'll have medical providers at each water stop, as well as um providers on bicycles, as well as Gators. If should anything occur, right? To to to to to take care of the racers. Luck says medical issues they typically see fall into several groups. One is more traumatic injuries, like tripping over a curb, tripping over an obstacle. So, they're going to get maybe a traumatic injury. As the race progresses, we see more medical issues. So, that would be more um heat illness, heat injury, dehydration. But an extreme circumstance would be cardiac arrest. We've had a few um and um we've been able to deploy our assets.

[00:01:29]>> With the help of this equipment.

[00:01:30]>> What we have um behind me are dunk tanks that we have essentially ice baths that we submerge them in to rapidly cool them down to uh an acceptable temperature in order to uh preserve their neurological function, right? Um long-term. They've been able to save every life and quickly. We want to make sure that we're providing the best possible care that you can in this environment.

[00:01:54]>> And runners are grateful. It just gives you that little bit of added security to know that if something would happen to you, you can feel good knowing that there's so many great trained medical professionals down here. Dr. Lux says they're anticipating warm weather and the medical professionals are prepared.