Alberto Salazar nearly died of a heart attack the last day in June. The story is only now emerging that Salazar, seemingly as lean and fit as when he won three consecutive New York City Marathons in the early '80s, planned to put Galen Rupp and Josh and Jared Rohatinsky through a brisk series of calisthenics and plyometric drills for an hour on the Nike campus in Beaverton, just south of Portland. Afterward, Salazar, 48, who still runs about 30 miles per week, planned to go for a run himself.
But Salazar felt a sharp pain in his neck and experienced dizziness. He went down to one knee, so if he passed out he wouldn't fall and hit his head. Then, he slumped to the ground."You could tell, when he fell he was out," said Rupp who is extremely close to Salazar. "His face was super blue. We were scared. We knew we needed to get help."
Rupp dialed 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Josh Rohatinsky dashed into an adjacent fitness center asking for help and a phone. Jared Rohatinsky ran toward the east end of the fields where a football camp was being conducted, to look for a trainer.
Louis Barahona, a combat medic with the 41st Infantry Brigade of the Oregon National Guard, was on the camp staff and rushed to help.
"I found a guy laying on the ground and not doing well," Barahona said. "He was blue. He was trying to breathe, but he wasn't breathing effectively. I rolled him over and checked for his pulse. He didn't have a pulse."
Other emergency workers arrived, but Salazar didn't have a consistent heartbeat. The EMTs brought out the defibrillator. They placed the paddles on Salazar and jolted him several times but couldn't get a heartbeat.
"When they got there, I thought he's finally going to make it through this," Rupp said. "But after they shocked him a couple times, I was really scared. It was like watching your dad die."
The fourth time the EMTs put the paddles on Salazar's chest and shocked him, his heart finally began beating.
Nine days after suffering his heart attack and two days after being released from the hospital, Salazar was back at his job in sports marketing at Nike. He now has an implanted stent to widen his right coronary artery, an implanted defibrillator to control his heart rhythm and a survivor's outlook on life.
"I don't feel lucky that I dodged a bullet," Salazar said. "I feel lucky it happened. This made me really think about how inconsequential running is. I could be gone right now, and what would it have mattered? What was my life of 48 years all about? "
Evidently, Salazar had been symptomatic. On the day his group of runners from the Oregon Project arrived in Indianapolis for the USATF in mid-June, Salazar first felt the sharp pain in his neck, dizziness and shortness of breath. He told himself he must have dozed in an awkward position on the plane, and that the stress was causing him to sleep poorly at night.
After returning to Portland, Salazar found himself growing light-headed and struggling to breathe just a quarter-mile into his daily run. Salazar, who has asthma, decided later he must not have properly used his inhaler.
A day later, at home, he again felt the sharp pain in his back and dizziness. This time it was accompanied by nausea.
Salazar's wife, Molly, and daughter, Maria, were out of town. Alarmed, he phoned his grown sons, Alex and Tony, to stay with him until he felt better.
That episode persuaded Salazar to visit his primary care physician, who found no obvious problem. She referred him to a cardiologist, but the next day, he went to the training session at Nike, and collapsed.
As it is, Salazar's recovery is virtually complete. An ultrasound examination before he was released showed no obvious damage.
A deeply religious man, Salazar insists he is a changed man. Every moment has become precious. Every routine event, special. He became emotional Sunday at Mass.
In an email I received last night from Salazar, he wrote, "There's no doubt that all the prayers from true friends like you are what got me through. Everything is fine and the docs expect a 100 percent recovery."
