Dan Shanahan was second this year in the 18-24 year old age group at NZ ironman and 46th overall. He went 9:48:27 in only his second IM. On April 25, he tragically suffered from a heart attack and died while out training for his Kona age group slot.
Three things come to mind…
This sucks
Life is short
No one is “bulletproof”
Is it just a perception, or are long distance athletes over represented in “early” heart attacks?
eat dessert first
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That’s a full-on no shitter.
"18-24 year old age group "
That’s the scarey part. If it was someone my age it would be much less surprising.
We lost a local 25-year-old athlete in a race this last weekend - he was a strong kayaker, did the kayak section, got on the bike to climb a gnarly hill and died. They are still unclear on whether or not it was his heart. Amazing. And so sad. I ride that hill all the time…will definitely look at it differently now.
This issue kind of hits close to home…
I just found out (about 6 months ago) that my family has a heart condition. I have an aunt, uncle, and cousin that have been diagnosed with it. Apparently, at any given time our hearts can just stop… they needed surgery to have a defibbrulator (sp?) placed in their chests.
We found this out because recently my uncle collapsed at work and they had to resuscitate (sp?) him. A month or two later my cousin (17 at the time) collapsed in school. Connecting the dots they figured out what was wrong.
I’m 22 and I have not gone to get tested. I really do not want to find out that I’ll need surgery and have some piece of equipment placed in me. I’ve always loved competing… and, to be told that I shouldn’t compete anymore (which is what will most likely happen) would crush me. I read the article in Triathlete this passed month about Greg Welch - I just couldn’t imagine being told to stop.
I’m training for my first Ironman (FL in November). And, I definitely feel for this IMNZ kid. Too soon…
Dude… even more than you don’t want to know the bad news, you NEED to know it. Maybe you’ll be fine. Maybe you’ll need surgery. But to choose purposeful ignorance is to flirt with death - especially as an athlete. I don’t know much about your heart condition (or any one, for that matter) but would hazard a guess that training with the implanted defibrillator would be less dangerous than training without one, given your family history.
The last thing we need is to have yet another young person fall.
Ditto.
-Robert
I’m sorry to hear that. Please get tested!
Chances are this person had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy… This is what killed hank gathers (basketball player) and Victor Petrenko (Ice Skater)
This condition is a big reason why school atheltic physicals are done.
The irony of this is exercising causes your heart to grow (hypertrophy) In a codntiton where your heart is already big (thick walled) exercise is just going to make it worse…
People wtih this condition usually have a family history of early (30 and younger) Sudden (key sudden) death.
If you are worried about this go to your doctor… these can be diagnosed by a simple stethescope exam. And if the doctor has any doubt you can get an echo cardiogram (sonogram of your heart) and have it ruled out almost equivocably.
Definately a tragedy
yeah someone mentioned this on another messageboard i go on. that sucks. im from new zealand but dont know the guy personally.
rob waddell the olympic gold medallist in single sculls has a heart condition, and sometimes his hr can get up to 260 bpm.
so he was out training? no prior warning signs?
Taking a wild guess rob waddell probably has either paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. or hw has wolf parkinson white syndrome.
In both conditions you can go into periods of extremly elevated heart rates.
Both are treatable conditions.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is less treatable… Unfortunately strenuous exercise is forboden with this condition
u a dr taku?heh
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in 9 months to be dr.
Not to be toooo much of an asshole, but we all die. I hope that’s not a surprise to anyone.
Why is it worse for young people to die? As far as I can tell, they get the fun end of life without the lifetime of work then failing health and a retirement home where they get to smell like…what IS that smell anyway?
I don’t think endurance athletes (doing excercise) die at any greater rate than the normal public, doing normal public activities. Some poor bastard dies on the couch and no-one notices. An athelte, especially a good one, dies and headlines are made. Why? Athletes dying while excercising is simply over reported as a cause of death in my opinion.
Here in NZ where Dan lived and died, something like 500 people a year die on our roads (4 million population) and virtually no-one bats an eye. One young athlete dies while and we are all talking about it. Media hype as far as I’m concerned. Of the number of active people in NZ (relativley active country I think) a few “natural causes” deaths is to be expected. Not nice, but expected.
Sorry Dan, hope I didn’t piss you off, without even knowing you or the details of how you died. If there is an afterlife, I hope it’s treating you well.
TriDork
"in 9 months to be dr. "
And then no more free medical advice over the net!
Seriously, then what - practise or are you specializing?
This stuff happens. Hypertropic cardiomyopathy is a possibility, but sudden death from it is actually usually due to an arrhythmia. It can be an arrhythmia that just doesn’t convert to an effective rhythm before the person dies. Or, the arrhythmia persisted long enough for clot to form…probably in his left atrium, then break loose and lodge into a coronary artery to finish off the heart. Other possibilities include aneurysm (several types), vegetations on valve leaflets breaking off and embolizing into a coronary artery, severe vasospasm of a coronary artery resulting in a dysrhthmia that wasn’t auto-converted soon enough, pulmonary embolus, and even others. There are just so many possibilities.
To the fellow that is not going to the doctor to find out if he has a condition that needs a defibrillator implant…I say go. If all you have is a condition that needs defibrillation if you go into an arhythmia that will kill you, it’s not a big deal…you can still train and even do an ironman. But, if you do have that arrhythmia without the defibrillator implant, you may be pushing up roses lying on your back rather than pushing up hills on your bike. Heart problems don’t equal couch potato. Surgery doesn’t equal invalid. But, it’s your life…
Tomorrow certainly ain’t guaranteed.
Emergency Medicine then a sports fellowship
Free medical advice is always available…
It’s a perception. The death rate in athlete’s is WAY LOWER.
I agree completely. At least he died doing what he loved doing. I had a friend die two weeks ago. Slipped while getting out of the bath & cracked his skull. It was early in the morning and he was about to catch a flight to go hiking in Tasmania for 6 days. No-one realised until we hadn’t heard from him when he was supposed to be back.
This does indeed suck.