NYC Marathon runner dies after collapsing 2 miles from end - ESPN

NEW YORK — A young Pennsylvania woman running the New York City Marathon for the first time to raise money for charity collapsed in Central Park, just over two miles from the finish line, and later died.

Rachel Apa, 24, of Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, was approaching the 24-mile mark of the 26.2 mile race Sunday when she collapsed, according to the New York Police Department.

Her father said she'd been stricken with rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition in which muscles can break down during exertion, poisoning the body. It was her first marathon, Steve Apa told The New York Times.

New York Road Runners, the nonprofit club that stages the race, said in a news release that CPR was administered to Apa by a bystander and later by event medical staff. A defibrillator was also used before paramedics took Apa to the Mount Sinai Medical Center.

The former Division I field hockey player at Bucknell University was in critical condition when she was brought to the hospital, where doctors unsuccessfully tried to save her for several hours.

Apa had run to raise money for Parkinson's disease in honor of her grandfather.

«It's unfathomable,» her father told The Times. He said his daughter, a product manager for an electrical component company who had just begun a master's program at Charleston Southern University, had been in «perfect health.»

Michaela Nicholas was watching the race, cheering on any runners whose names she could read off their bibs, when Apa passed. Nicholas recalled Tuesday that she called out a message of encouragement, then saw Apa collapse about 15 yards (meters) further along the route.

Nicholas, a hospital social worker, said she tried to comfort Apa while two other race spectators performed CPR.

«I just held Rachel's