Runner collapses and dies in Twin Cities Marathon
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Twin Cities newspapers identified the man as George Spears, 49, of Minneapolis.
He collapsed at the 6-mile mark near Lake Calhoun and was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he died of an apparent heart attack, officials said.
"We had a pretty quick response time. I'm pretty confident we did all we could," said Dr. Bill Roberts, medical director for the marathon.
Another middle-aged man also collapsed just short of the finish line around 11:30 a.m. Officials said that man was revived with an external defibrillator machine and taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul for treatment.
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Roberts said research shows the risk of cardiac arrest is about 1 in 50,000 marathon finishers, and the risk of death is about 1 in 200,000.
Sunday's death was the second in the history of the Twin Cities Marathon. In 1989, a 40-year-old Bloomington man competing in his first marathon collapsed and died after crossing the finish line.
The men's winner of the marathon was Mbarak Hussein with a time of two hours 13 minutes 52 seconds. That was 17 seconds faster than the second place finisher, Simon Sawe.
The women's winner was Marla Runyan, with a time of two hours 32 minutes 17 seconds. Runyan, of Eugene, Oregon, is legally blind.
More than 10,000 runners participated in Sunday's marathon, which celebrated its 25th anniversary.