Marathoner survives cardiac arrest to run another day
A veteran marathon runner, it was a shorter, 3,000-meter race that nearly cost Bob Botto his life.
“I have run 25 marathons and 76 ultra-marathons. As of Jan. 1, including all my races and training, I have run 30,875 miles. But it’s not the long distance that kills you. It’s the short distance.
“I was entered in a 3,000-meter race on June 9, 2012, at Rice University. I had no idea that anything was wrong with me. In January, I had won a U.S.A. Track and Field 100-kilometer race for my age. In February, I did the Rocky Raccoon 100-Mile Trail Run at Huntsville State Park. In March, I won a U.S.A. Track and Field 50-mile mountain race. In April, I ran the Relay for Life here in Baytown. In May, I ran in the Boxrox Marathon in central Texas in 95 degrees on rugged trails. So I survived all of that.
Doctors believe Bob Botto’s cardiac arrest was the result of a genetic predisposition.
“Then June 9 came, and I was lined up for 3,000 meters. I ran through the finish, then I started walking and cooling down. I don’t remember anything that happened after that. Nothing. I had collapsed and died. My heart was not beating for up to 50 minutes, is what the doctor said.
“John Bryant, a friend of mine on our ExxonMobil track team, was there within one minute to begin doing CPR. He continued until Station 33 arrived from Houston, and they used the paddles to get my heart beating again. My wife met me at the hospital. She felt my ankles and said there was a tiny, little heart beat there. That was about two hours later.
“The doctors decided to put me in a medical coma. By the sixth day, they disconnected the EEG monitor because there was no data coming out of it. On the seventh day, they asked my wife for permission to disconnect me from life support. What she said was, ‘If you do that, he’ll just be on his own.’ So they didn’t do it. And I woke up at 6 o’clock the very next morning.”
— Bob Botto, 67
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