Death During Swim Renews Questions About Event’s Safety

A 64-year-old man died of cardiac arrest during Sunday’s New York City Triathlon while swimming in the Hudson River, race officials said. A 40-year-old woman also had a heart attack during the 1-mile swim, and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital.

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Robert Caplin for The New York Times

A competitor in the New York City Triathlon. A 64-year-old man died of cardiac arrest and a 40-year-old woman survived a heart attack in the swim portion.

Michael Kudryk, 64, of Freehold, N.J., who was competing as part of a three-person relay team, was spotted unconscious in the water about a half-mile into the swim, according to the race’s director Bill Burke. The swim portion of the competition began at a wharf parallel to 96th Street and finished near the 79th Street boat basin. Race officials got Kudryk onto a fire rescue boat operated by the New York City Police Department, and then into an ambulance at 79th Street, and took him to Roosevelt Hospital.

“Nobody goes into this event expecting this type of tragedy,” Burke said. “It’s one of those unforeseen life events that happens when you get this many people to participate in physical activity.”

No additional details on the female triathlete were available.

The death is the second in the 11-year history of the race, which incorporates a 1-mile swim, 25-mile bike and 6.1-mile run, but it raises questions about the safety of the open-water swimming leg of triathlons. In 2008, the 32-year old Esteban Neira of Argentina, died while swimming in the Hudson. Neira’s death was linked to a condition involving high blood pressure. But his death occurred during a year in which at least eight people died during the swim portion of a triathlon. In May of this year, Dr. Michael Wiggins, a 42-year-old who had an irregular heart beat, died while swimming in the Pelican Fest Triathlon in Fort Collins, Colo.

In 2010 The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study assessing the risk of sudden death during triathlons. The study said that between 2006 and 2008, 14 people died while participating in triathlons, 13 while swimming. The report said that seven of the nine of that group that had an autopsy had died from cardiovascular abnormalities.

But the study said the challenges caused by open water swims hampered life saving attempts.

“Because triathlons begin with chaotic, highly dense mass starts, there is opportunity for bodily contact and exposure to cold turbulent water,” the report said. “Triathlons also pose inherent obstacles to identifying distressed athletes and initiating timely resuscitation on open water.”

Namgyal Galden, a 27-year-old triathlete from Boston, said choppy water in the Hudson was an added challenge this year. But Galden said the race’s decision to allow only 20 athletes to dive into the water at a time — instead of hundreds — cut down on the usual roughness of a mass-participant swim start.

“It was very easy, you usually get kicked or whacked, and that didn’t happen to me,” Galden said. “I think it’s better than the old system.”

Burke said the race had 53 kayakers, 32 lifeguards, four police boats, three fire department boats, two jet skis and two launch boats patrolling the one-mile swim. He said each of the boats had paramedic or rescue divers aboard.

“It’s a flotilla of support,” he said.

The swim was not the only portion of the race in which rescue crews were needed. A number of cyclists in the 3,900 participants were sent tumbling on rain-slicked roads. And as temperatures rose into the low 90s on a humid day, athletes suffering from dehydration limped into medical tents.

Ben Collins, who won the men’s race in 1 hour, 48 minutes, 11 seconds, spent an hour and a half receiving intravenous fluids and cooling down in an ice bath after finishing. Collins broke away from the men’s pro field during the bicycle leg, distancing himself from the prerace favorite Greg Bennett, a four-time New York City Triathlon winner. As Collins walked across the finish line in Central Park, he slunk to his knees and muttered a “Go Lions” in supports of Columbia University, where he was a 2005 graduate.

Rebeccah Wassner won the women’s race, her third straight New York City Triathlon, finishing it in 2:03.19.

Jasmine Oeinck, a professional triathlete from Boulder, Colo. , required doctor’s attention after crashing on her bicycle. Oeinck was the first professional woman to exit the water, and rode alongside Wassner. While cycling on a rain-drenched stretch of the West Side Highway near 150th street, Oeinck struck a pothole and cartwheeled over her bicycle, sustaining deep scrapes on her back and legs, and a gash on her right elbow. She was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center where she received nine stitches in her arm.

“I thought it was just a puddle, turns out it was a pothole,” Oeinck said.

Oeinck, who holds ambitions of qualifying for the London Olympics, said she had heard the news of two competitors having heart attacks. She said that she felt said that the triathlon’s increase in popularity has attracted a wider range of athletes to the sport.

“It’s now become a common trend is for people to use triathlon as a way to lose weight,” Oeinck said. “But you go to races and look around, and you start to ask yourself, ‘Is this race too much for that person?’