A New York City Marathon spectator who had cheered for 24-year-old Rachel Apa moments before she collapsed said she rushed to the runner’s side, held her hand and assured her that “she wasn’t alone.”
Hospital social worker Michaela Nicholas and her fiancé had planned to watch the marathon only briefly. But after being “drawn in by the energy of New York City,” they decided to keep cheering near a marker indicating that runners had just 2.2 miles left until the finish line, the Daily Mail reported.
At about 1:30 p.m., the couple saw Apa pass by wearing green, with the name “Rachel” printed across her bib.
“So we both cheered,” Nicholas told the publication. “‘Let’s go, Rachel! You got this!’”
Just minutes later, Nicholas looked up the road near the 24-mile mark. About 15 yards ahead, she saw Apa collapsed on the ground.
Two young women running in the marathon stopped to assist. One called 911 while Nicholas pushed through the spectator barrier to reach the fallen runner.
Nicholas found Apa unresponsive and without a pulse as her fiancé shouted for a doctor.
“I held Rachel’s hand and just told her that she wasn’t alone, that she had so many people who loved her,” Nicholas said.
“I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t scared.”
Two doctors in the crowd immediately began CPR. As they worked, Nicholas prayed while rubbing the cross attached to Apa’s bracelet.
“I work in palliative care and I unfortunately have seen a lot of people at end of life,” Nicholas said. “And I knew it was serious.”
She stayed with Apa until marathon medics arrived, leaving Central Park only after the runner had been placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.
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Afterward, Nicholas said she “just thought about what else I could do” and searched the list of the marathon’s 61,000 participants to locate Rachel’s information.
“I found her parents’ names and phone numbers, and I called Lenox Hill and Mount Sinai – the two closest hospitals to where the incident happened – and just asked that they write down her parents’ phone numbers in case they hadn’t already been able to contact [them],” the spectator told the Mail.
Apa died six hours later from the rare muscle condition rhabdomyolysis, according to her heartbroken father.
Nicholas said she did not learn of Apa’s death until Monday, when she decided to call the runner’s parents, Steve Apa and Michelle Apa.
“I was debating reaching out to her family or not,” Nicholas said. “And my gut was just telling me that I wanted to relay that people were with Rachel and that she wasn’t alone, that she was surrounded by a team of people trying to help.”
Nicholas said Apa’s grieving parents were “just so loving and kind and so appreciative” when they received her call Monday.
“To be able to thank someone while you’re grieving like that is remarkable,” Nicholas said.
She said Rachel’s death was “so devastating,” but added that she was “so proud to be a healthcare worker, and to be among amazing doctors and nurses and humans who just [react] when their help is needed… they did everything they could,” she told the outlet.
Apa was a gifted former student-athlete who played field hockey at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. She had recently begun a graduate degree at Charleston Southern University.
“The loss of a vibrant young woman in the prime of her life is a sorrow no parent can imagine enduring,” B. Keith Faulkner, president of CSU, said in a statement.
“Her final hours are forever marked by Rachel’s selfless dedication to helping others as she ran to raise funds in the fight against Parkinson’s disease.”
