By Mike Morsch, Packet Media Group
As Jen Moore was walking along the race route of the recent Poconos Run for the Red marathon near mile marker 19, she mentioned to a couple of friends that the runners at that point of the race looked haggard and were starting to labor.
“I saw a couple of people who did not look good and I said, out loud to the two women I was with, ‘This is when I start reviewing CPR steps in my mind,’ ” said Ms. Moore, a registered nurse with experience in the labor and delivery unit and a Hopewell Township resident.
Fate was listening, too.
John Burrows was running the marathon that day, on May 17. An experienced runner from Titusville who had competed in several marathons and ultra-marathons over the past 20 years, including this same Run for the Red race in 2007 and 2008, the 50 year old thought he was running pretty well that day, at one point on a 3:35 pace.
But suddenly something wasn’t right. Mr. Burrows started having a burning sensation in his chest and didn’t really know what was happening. The 3:40 pace group passed him, the 3:45 pace group passed him and he began to slow down considerably.
“I was kind of looking for help, but I thought I should just stop running,” said Mr. Burrows.
He approached two women and a man standing along the side of the route handing out water. They told him he didn’t look good, allowed him to sit in one of their chairs and called 9-1-1.
While they were waiting for the ambulance, a police officer came by, assessed the situation and decided that he was going to transport Mr. Burrows to the hospital in his police car.
Mr. Burrows got up out of the chair and collapsed before he could get into the police car.
Ms. Moore hadn’t planned on being at the Poconos race that day. In fact, she didn’t make the decision to attend until 8 p.m. the previous evening. An avid runner herself who is a member of an unofficial Hopewell running club called HACS (for Hopewell Athletic Club, but pronounced “hacks”), she decided to attend not as an official runner in the marathon but to support some of her running friends who were officially participating.
She had parked her car around mile marker 20 and was working her way back from the finish line, against the grain of runners, planning to hook up with a friend and run the final few miles with her back to the finish line.
It was at that point that Ms. Moore saw police standing over someone lying off the side of the road. It was John Burrows on the ground. Instinctively, Ms. Moore’s training kicked in.
“I asked if they needed help, which is very unlike me. I don’t even know what came over me,” said Ms. Moore. “But I saw him and he looked awful. He had no pulse and he wasn’t breathing. I just started CPR.”
In all her experience as a nurse, she had never had to perform CPR on another person.
Ms. Moore performed CPR on Mr. Burrows for what seemed like an eternity, which she later estimated to be between five and eight minutes. Another police officer arrived with an AED device — an automated external defibrillator — that diagnoses life-threatening cardiac situations and provides, through the use of paddles, electric therapy to get the heart restarted. Ms. Moore zapped Mr. Burrows with the paddles, then continued CRP.
Once the ambulance arrived, Ms. Moore helped get Mr. Burrows on the stretcher and the ambulance whisked him away to the hospital.
And then Ms. Moore essentially found herself alone, somewhat at a loss for what to do next.
“I knew his name was John because in some races they put your name on the bib with your number. And that’s really all I knew,” said Ms. Moore. “I really didn’t know what to do afterwards. I stood around for a little while and was in shock a little bit. After about a minute, one police officer looked me in the eye and he said, ‘Thank you.” I said, ‘You’re welcome.’ And that was it.”
She decided to make her way back to the finish line and reconnect with her friends. But in the commotion, Ms. Moore wasn’t identified by the police, the bystanders or by race officials. She was the mystery woman who helped the stricken runner.
Her friends at the finish line made inquiries to race officials about the condition of the fallen runner. But Ms. Moore was concerned.
“I didn’t have a good feeling, especially because it had been so long. He looked bad. I had never seen anybody like that before,” said Ms. Moore. “His eyes were open the whole time. He never blinked. He has the bluest eyes. I was kind of haunted by the look on his face as I was doing the mouth-to-mouth. It stayed with me.”
Race officials eventually informed her that Mr. Burrows had indeed suffered a heart attack but that he had survived.
The last thing Mr. Burrows remembers was collapsing in front of the police car. He has no memory of anything else until waking up in his hospital room and seeing his family. A stent had been placed in his heart.
“What’s strange is that we never got her name from the police officer, so we really didn’t know anything about her until after it was all said and done,” said Mr. Burrows.
It turns out they both were from the Hopewell area, but didn’t know each other. In fact, they each had children – Mr. Burrows’ daughter Nora and Ms. Moore’s stepson Brady – that graduated a few weeks ago in the same senior class at Hopewell Valley Central High School.
“My daughter Nora came home from school one day and said, ‘I know who saved your life,’ ” said Mr. Burrows.
The coincidences didn’t end there.
Mr. Burrows’ son and Ms. Moore’s son played on the same Pop Warner League youth football team, a team that was coached by Ms. Moore’s husband.And they both belong to running clubs, Mr. Burrows to the Bucks County Roadrunners and Ms. Moore to the HACS.
In addition to the children talking about it at school, word was put out through the circle of runners in the area and that’s how Mr. Burrows learned Ms. Moore’s identity.
“Once I knew who she was through my daughter and through the running clubs, I just waited until I felt up to it and all I did was that I looked in the high school directory and that’s how I got her number,” said Mr. Burrows. “I called her one day out of the blue. It kind of made me relive it. But I think it was necessary because she did a great job and I was fortunate that she was there. She was like an angel.”
“The phone call was extremely powerful. But I can tell you very honestly that the thing that really got to me was a few days later,” said Ms. Moore.
A reporter in the Poconos had been trying to locate the “mystery woman” unsuccessfully through various methods, including social networks. But the reporter had filed a story that included video of Mr. Burrows and his family in the hospital.
“I saw film of him in the hospital for the first time, and that was the most powerful thing because I saw his wife. And I can’t even imagine. She was so grateful. Seeing his wife and seeing him sitting up, talking to the reporter was just what I needed,” said Ms. Moore.
The two finally did meet face-to-face at the Hopewell Valley Central High School graduation ceremony on June 18, just a little more than a month after fate had brought them together at the Poconos race.
Mr. Burrows is currently in cardiac rehab and his doctors have told him that if everything goes according to schedule, he could be back running in 12 weeks. He said he likely won’t be doing any more marathons, but he’d like to be able to run again.
He does, however, want to revisit the portion of the Poconos race that he wasn’t able to complete, and he asked Ms. Moore at the graduation ceremony if she would accompany him for the last few miles in next year’s race.
“And I said absolutely, 100 percent. So I’m looking forward to that. I definitely feel a connection to him,” said Ms. Moore.
“I feel like I was meant to be there that day. I wasn’t even planning on going. It truly was a last-minute decision. I believe everything happens for a reason and I believe I was meant to be there,” she said.
