A 24-year-old Pennsylvania woman died Monday night after collapsing just two miles from the finish line of her first New York City Marathon, her father says, after texting him “Ow ow” five miles earlier.
Story Snapshot
- Rachel Apa, 24, of central Pennsylvania collapsed near mile 24 of the New York City Marathon in Central Park.
- A bystander started CPR, race medics used a defibrillator, and she was rushed to a Mount Sinai hospital.
- She died that night; her father, Steve Apa, says doctors told him rhabdomyolysis, a rare muscle breakdown condition, caused her death.
- Apa had texted her father about pain around mile 19, roughly five miles before she went down.
- Marathon deaths are rare, with studies showing cardiac arrest strikes about 1 in every 100,000 runners.
Runner Collapses Near Mile 24 in Central Park
Rachel Apa was running her first New York City Marathon when she collapsed near the 24-mile mark inside Central Park, according to New York Road Runners and the New York Police Department. A bystander began CPR right away. Event medical staff took over moments later and used a defibrillator to try to save her. Paramedics rushed her by ambulance to a Mount Sinai hospital in Manhattan, where doctors treated her for several hours before she died that night.
New York Road Runners confirmed the sequence of events in a statement offering condolences to Apa’s family. The group runs the annual marathon and staffs the course with emergency crews specifically trained to respond to collapses like this one. Reports place the collapse around 1:30 p.m., with medical teams arriving within minutes and the ambulance leaving for the hospital roughly 20 minutes later.
Father Says Rhabdomyolysis Took Daughter’s Life
Steve Apa, Rachel’s father, told The New York Times his daughter died of rhabdomyolysis. Doctors describe the condition as a breakdown of muscle tissue that dumps harmful proteins into the bloodstream. In severe cases, it can damage the kidneys and heart and turn deadly fast. Medical experts say it can be triggered by extreme physical exertion, which makes marathon running a known, if uncommon, risk factor.
Steve Apa’s account is the only public confirmation of the specific diagnosis so far, and no hospital or medical examiner records have been released publicly. That does not make the family’s account any less credible. It simply means the full clinical picture, including lab results and any underlying health factors, has not yet been made public.
Final Texts Showed Growing Pain During the Race
Rachel Apa was raising money for Parkinson’s research and had played field hockey at Red Land High School and Bucknell University before taking on her first marathon. Her father said she texted him during the race describing pain, including a message reading “Ow ow” around mile 19. Five miles later, near mile 24, she collapsed. The gap between her warning signs and the collapse raises hard questions about how runners and race staff can catch trouble sooner.
Families watching loved ones compete in a 26.2-mile race know the physical toll is real, but a fit, healthy 24-year-old athlete collapsing fatally still shocks communities built around grit and perseverance. Apa’s story is now spreading well beyond Pennsylvania and New York, as local news stations and national outlets pick up her father’s account of her final hours.
Marathon Deaths Remain Rare, But Not Impossible
Large studies of long-distance races back up just how rare a fatal collapse really is. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found cardiac arrest strikes about 0.54 runners per 100,000 participants, and sudden death tied to marathons occurs in roughly 1 of every 50,000 to 114,000 finishers depending on the study. A Paris-based registry tracking more than one million runners found similar low rates for life-threatening events during races.
Rachel Apa, former Red Land and Bucknell field hockey player, dies after NYC Marathon collapse — Female Athlete News – https://t.co/SLTTUnPCW5
— FemaleAthleteNews (@Female_FANews) November 3, 2026
Those numbers offer little comfort to the Apa family tonight, but they explain why marathon organizers station medical teams, defibrillators, and ambulances along every course. New York Road Runners’ quick response, from bystander CPR to hospital transport within minutes, followed the exact protocol designed for moments like this. Despite that fast response, Rachel Apa did not survive, a reminder that even the best emergency planning cannot guarantee every outcome.
Sources:
people.com, espn.com, abc7.com, boston.com
