[Note: this isn't your typical race report. This is a first person account of a close encounter with
insect venom and doesn't do justice to the fun and challenging course the great folks at GOALS ARA assembled. I would not hesitate to compete in another GOALS race in the future!]
I didn't start vomiting until after my teammate, Mike, took off down the mountain for help. It was a
tough decision. It signaled the end to our hopes for a strong finish at the race. It was an admission
that I was in serious danger and unable, even with the help of my teammate, to get through the final
mile of bushwhacking to the finish line. It was an act of desperation.
We were having a good day of adventure racing for the first 9 hours. We had registered as a 3-person
coed team, but our female teammate had to cancel at the last minute so Mike Jones and I made the trip
anyway. We thought, if nothing else, this would be a great work out. We’ve done a lot of adventure races
together and figured this would be a good long training day.
The race started normally enough. We had some unfortunate bike maintenance issues during the mountain biking
leg, it probably cost us 30 minutes or more, but we had navigated the hills and trails well and were among the
first 10 teams to hit the canoe leg. Since we had to paddle the full 7 miles with our bikes in the canoe, being
a 2-person team with ample room to tie the bikes in proved a considerable advantage and we passed a number of
teams on the river; some 3-person teams had actually given up squeezing everything into their canoe and had one
person wading down the river or walking along the shore. The following biking leg was a breeze, we even found a
perfect stream to filter water at, and we hiked our way to the top of Hawk Mountain for the ropes section. The
Pennsylvania "River of Rocks" was unlike anything we had seen before: a wide field of automobile-sized granite
chunks stretching endlessly; we found the checkpoint in the rock field and continued on our way. The day was
going well and we were realizing our goal to race strong, but leave something in the tank for the big 24-hour
race in New Hampshire the next weekend.
It unraveled, however, on our final stretch to the finish. We chose the direct route, which in adventure racing
nearly always means bushwhacking off trail and using a compass and map to guide your progress. The bushwhack was
slightly downhill and, while the trees and brush were in full summer form, this north facing slope wasn't as dense
as in earlier parts of the race. On a good day, this stretch would take us no more than 15 minutes and we'd be
celebrating at the finish line in short order. As it turned out, however, this wasn't a good day.
I felt a leaf or some debris land on my head and reached up to brush it off, but it was mushy and that's when it
dawned on me that it was an insect and I had mashed it between my fingers. Before mashing it, however, the insect,
a yellow jacket as it turns out, had decided to sting me. When stinging, yellow Jackets release pheromones that
lead other yellow jackets to sting. It 's a collective defense mechanism that yellow jackets employ and it was
bad news for me. I had disturbed a few of the insects, probably by kicking a decomposing log they were in, and
they were responding instinctively. I stumbled down the mountain, away from the buzzing attackers, and after a few
hectic moments the situation seemed under control. I had been stung 3 or 4 times, but it didn't seem like anything
serious as I wasn't allergic to stings -- up until then, at least. Mike and I joked about the encounter as we
continued our bushwhack.
It didn't take long, only a few minutes, before I knew something wasn't right. My upper lip went numb and my arms
and legs started itching -- the kind of itching that makes you stop what you're doing and rake your nails over your
skin. I mentioned this to Mike and we kept heading down the mountain. A few minutes later, I began feeling light-headed
and my vision became cloudy. My back was itching. I was stumbling through the bushes and having trouble walking upright.
Mike asked me if my throat felt itchy and I told him it didn't. He said, "Good, let's get you the hell off this mountain."
I leaned on Mike's shoulder and we traveled 20 feet, but I had to stop and sit down to let my vision clear. I started
to feel tightness in my chest, but I was having no problems breathing so we kept trying to move forward. Another 20 feet . . .
another stop. I couldn't move without my vision clouding up and needing to sit down. This was classic anaphylactic shock.
I felt unbelievably fatigued. I drank the last of our water, tried eating an energy gel, and gave Mike my pack to carry.
We tried to move again, but we could only move 20 feet every few minutes and my chest was growing tighter. I was very
sleepy.
It's at times like this, when a situation is spiraling seriously out of control, that decisions aren't based on logic so
much as instinct. It's not overstating it to say that this wasn't an adventure race anymore; it had become a survival race.
I collapsed to the ground and told Mike, "Leave the backpacks with me and go get help." The more I moved, the worse I
became and at 20 feet every 5 minutes it would be hours before we'd reach help and we didn't know how far this allergic
reaction would go. Our cell phone was useless in the wooded backcountry and the only reasonable option was for Mike to go
for help. So he grabbed his map and compass, took note of the surrounding features, and headed down the mountain to the
medical staff at the finish line. Mike's parting words were "Don't go to sleep!"
I watched him disappear into the forest and things became very quiet for a few minutes . . . until I heard the buzzing
of a yellow jacket around my right shoulder. I don't know if it was the insect pheromones or just plain bad luck, but
another stinging adversary had found me. I grabbed the two backpacks and crawled away on my hands and knees before the
insect could sting me. Luckily, it didn't follow and I rested my head against a tree. The tightness in my chest began
to intensify and I thought for certain that I wasn't going to see myself off this mountain. I remember thinking how sad
for Mike to lead a medical team back for me only to find me slumped against a tree. That's when the vomiting started and,
strangely, it relaxed the tension in my chest once the bout was over. For the next 15 minutes I alternated between nausea
and relief. I was still able to breath and I collected my thoughts. I felt very helpless, but I considered what I could
do to help my cause. I grabbed my survival whistle from my backpack and started blowing on it every 30 seconds or so. There
were 40 or more teams in this race and some were likely to be traveling through this part of the forest -- if I didn't
find any other teams in these woods, then at least my whistle would help lead Mike and the medical team to my location.
After 10 minutes of the survival whistle, another team heard the sound and came to help. They were a 2-person coed team,
a brother and sister, and while they didn't bring any true medical aid they significantly boosted my spirits and helped
keep me awake. It was good to have company. They took up the survival whistle chorus and helped to lead Mike and the
medical team to our location. It was 45 minutes from when Mike left to his return with a full search and rescue team,
but it felt like several hours. The medical team gave me an IV of fluid that included multiple hits of epinephrine and
everyone (including Mike and the brother and sister team) carried me down the mountain on a stretcher to the medical station.
While I was stabilizing in the medical building, I learned that the medic who had administered the IV and epinephrine was the
twin sister of Krista Griesacker. You'll recall this was the Krista Griesacker Memorial Adventure Race -- Krista had died
tragically while on top of a mountain in Wyoming. Krista's family, including her twin sister Paula, was helping at this race
in support of her memory. It's a curious twist that Krista's sister would play such a pivotal role in my rescue and, perhaps,
survival at this event commemorating Krista's life. As luck would have it, Paula is an emergency room nurse and anaphylactic
shock cases such as mine are routine for her. Also lucky for me, this race was based around the civilian search and rescue
school at Hawk Mountain Pennsylvania -- where Krista worked -- so there was an expert team of emergency staff at the finish
line when Mike got there in search of help. Make no mistake about it, had this yellow jacket situation come to pass at a
different event, perhaps any other adventure race, the outcome could have been different. In meeting with doctors and immunologists
since my experience, they all emphasize how lucky I was and point out that 100 to 200 people die every year from anaphylactic
shock cases just like mine.
My story ends happily. I went back to work a couple days later and we did well at the 24-hour race in New Hampshire (I carried
epinephrine with me of course!). I've got appointments with an allergist and I now carry an epi-pen and lots of Benedryl with
me all the time. I didn't think I had an allergy to insect stings, but the only way you know is to experience a negative reaction
and for adventure racers, who are often miles away from assistance and in very unforgiving territory, finding out "in the field"
as I did can be disastrous.
Epinephrine should be part of every adventure racer's first-aid kit; had I been carrying an epi-pen, I probably would've been
able to finish the race. If you adventure race or spend a lot of time in the wilderness, you should consult with your doctor
about epinephrine; bring them in a copy of this story and let them know you're into the same sort of stuff that I am and that
you don't want to count on being only 1 mile away from a top class wilderness rescue school if things go bad. I was lucky.
