I’m sure many have heard the news that there was a missing swimmer and the body wasn’t located until 9:30 AM.
https://www.the-sun.com/sport/16243502/mara-flavia-araujo-dead-texas-ironman/
Super sad
1 Like
Posted on ironman Texas Facebook page regarding the swim death.
*Via: Shawn McDonald -author/OP. Sharing for reach.
We lost an Ironman athlete this morning on the swim. This is hard to write.
I’m sharing this because I hope it somehow finds its way back to her family — and that it brings them even a small measure of comfort knowing that people who didn’t know her at all gave everything they had to save her.
My 12-year-old daughter Mila and I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning and drove from Sugar Land to The Woodlands to volunteer on our paddle board for the swim portion of Ironman Texas. We also came to cheer on a close friend competing for the very first time.
I wanted to volunteer for several reasons — but one of the biggest was giving Mila a chance to experience this incredible event from a completely different perspective than watching me compete last year. We launched our board in the dark, waited near the start area, took videos and photos, sang the national anthem, and buzzed with excitement as thousands of athletes began entering the water. It was a beautiful morning.
After the start, we paddled alongside swimmers, offering a hand - or a board — to anyone who needed a quick rest. Then we heard a whistle.
A group of younger volunteers in a kayak on the far side of the field were raising a flag, blowing a whistle, yelling for help. Dozens of athletes were between us and them. I could see swimmers clinging to their kayak. I heard them say she went under. I had Mila hand me the paddle and I started calling out to the athletes around us to stop so I could cross. I made my way over in about 30 seconds. When I got there and asked what happened, they all said the same thing: She went under. Right here. Right below us. The panic and fear on their faces won’t leave me for a long time.
The only athlete I remember seeing was an older gentleman, maybe in his 60s — hanging onto the side of the kayak, goggles removed, with the widest eyes I have ever seen. A thousand-yard stare. He had just watched someone disappear beneath him.
I dove in immediately and began searching. One other young volunteer, possibly a lifeguard, began diving with me. After about a minute underwater, I felt her body with my foot. I surfaced, took what seemed like the deepest breath I have ever taken and went back down. She was gone. I don’t know how to describe what that felt like. I tried again. And again. And again. I just knew I would feel her again and could grab her and pull her up. I lost count of how many times I dove over the next hour (attached photo is of my watch that tracked my movement as I searched).
When boats with sonar arrived and identified a target, I’d dive in that area. It never entered my mind that she had already passed long ago. I just kept searching like I was going to pull her up alive. Looking back, I was probably taking more risks than I should have. But I couldn’t stop.
I was asked to exit the water as dive teams began to arrive. They recovered her body just after 9 a.m.
She had gone into that water chasing something most people only dream of finishing. She trained for it. She showed up for it. She deserved to come out of it.
What breaks my heart most is imagining her family on shore, watching for her to exit the water and mount her bike. Refreshing the app. Waiting for her position to update. It never did. They never saw her come out.
Her name was Mara and she was from Brazil. She was someone’s whole world.
To her family: we did everything we could. I am so deeply, genuinely sorry that it wasn’t enough. She will stay with me.
May she rest in peace. I will be praying for all of you and please do the same for us.
*To clarify this is a facebook post I’m sharing for reach as I encountered it on Reddit.
24 Likes
Reading your post is heartbreaking! Your story on trying to save her is gut wrenching! I must have only been about 10-20yds ahead of her because as I was swimming I started hearing the whistles. A few moments later these huge waves started lifting me up and down and it didn’t dawn on me that the police boats were racing to the scene. I didn’t learn till after the race that someone had passed. In 35 years of tris this was my first swim death and apparently I was very close to the victim. Condolences to her family and friends and I hope you get any and all the help you need dealing with such a tragedy.
It’s shared from a facebook post. Not my experience.
Missed that! Just got home from driving 13hrs from the race.
I posted this on the Influencer thread yesterday - because didn’t want to go on the race thread itself nor start a new thread without decent information accuracy assurance.
Tragic
5 Influencer Mara Flavia Araujo, 38, died during the swim section of Ironman Texas. Mara was an accomplished triathlete, placing #3 in the Brasilia Triathlon and had qualified for the IM 70.3 worlds twice.
In a recent Instagram post she related how she became a triathlete nearly eight years ago after being diagnosed with a health problem, saying: “I saw a way to be reborn, God and sport.”
I’ll add something that really stuck with me about this tragedy; in the athlete briefing on Friday the announcer said something I had never heard before in a pre race meeting. He specifically said if you feel ill on race day don’t race. That made me think of all the posts I’ve read over the years on this forum where someone will ask if it’s ok for them to race due to an ongoing or recent illness and the answer is usually yes. It really struck me because I had never heard it so clearly spoken from an Ironman official. And then I read of this death and a possible cause. Weird and very sad.
“He said: “She was ill before the trip, she wasn’t okay.”
Easy and reasonable to say but there’s a $$ imperative, as well as all the training/expense an athlete has put in, to travel and once there, race. Ironman are not saying “anyone who feels ill should not start: we’ll transfer your entry to a similar race later in season or next year, or a substantial discount for that postponed race entry.” Or do they? Such a policy would put their money where their ‘care’ words are. However it would also open the door to hesitation/procrastination not born of illness.
6 Likes
What is most difficult to read about that account, was that he was diving for her for an hour before the dive team arrived. It’s fine having water safety volunteers across the course, but they need immediate back-up by qualified open water life-guards and maybe a dive team asap.
2 Likes
I worked as a first responder (plain clothes law enforcement) at IMTX several years and I don’t recall them having a dive team on-site. Not that they weren’t there, I just never saw them or heard they were there.
Based on all accounts if they are taking hour or so to respond, they certainly likely weren’t “on site”. Which I’m shocked an race as big as IM isn’t required by the host city/emergency personal to use divers as part of an EAP.
1 Like
Having spent 20years on a dive team, they are used for recoveries, not rescues. It is impractical to think that a team can get suited up and deployed in the few minutes of when someone goes down and missing. Either someone witnesses and gets them right away, or it is going to be a recovery effort.
That person that was free diving to look for this woman was her only chance, and even then it was likely too late. Adding a very expensive specialized unit like a dive team is not necessary or productive. And citing the time it takes for them to get there is irrlevant, they are at that point just looking for a body, and although you want to find them ASAP, it is not critical to be counting seconds at that point..
17 Likes
I wonder if she would have sunk even wearing a wetsuit
Oddly enough this semi-close scenario happened to an athlete of mine that I was at, at an non-IM event (with a much happier ending, thankfully). When the count didn’t add up, they immediately sent in the divers. Our story ended up a happy ending, said athlete walked off the swim course but forget to turn in chip or alert anyone. I got the call from the very worried RD “do you know where your athelte is”, when I told him “yeah he’s standing right beside me”; it went from very tense moment to elated moment to a scolding “you guys are covering the bill of sending divers in the water” all in about 5s.
Or with a tow float. I know people don’t think tow floats are compatible with triathlon, but I’ve done mass start Oceanman races where you have to wear a tow float and it’s not a problem at all. If she’d been attached to a tow float they would have found her instantly.
6 Likes
No she would not have sunk, virtually impossible. But likely she would still have passed since it is almost always a heart anomaly that kills these folks. We have had many, many incidences where we got the folks right away or within seconds of going unconscious, but they never make it back. These are not primary drownings, that is the secondary cause.
I’ve been at two races where a swimmer self rescued and left their bike in the rack. And yes it creates a huge panic with the race personnel and there is a big search that follows. Both turned out like yours, just walked off the course and figured they would get their bike later after the race, not knowing or thinking about what that lone bike represented to everyone else…
1 Like
possibly they could have taken her ashore in a reasonable time and tried to defibrillate her, if she had a wetsuit
3 Likes
Incredibly sad. I swam through some big waves right before turning into the canal, and remember seeing the ambulances on E Shore Dr when sighting to my right. In the moment it didn’t click what was happening but I knew the waves were from a boat.