At round 2 in Byron, racer Joel Mertes from Utica, Illinois suffered a medical event at the end of his first lap on the A/B course. As a result, Mertes fell to the ground in the whoop section of the motocross track where he laid unresponsive.
For those who witnessed the next 15 or so minutes, including many racers passing by, it was a gut-wrenching scene that had the makings of a terrible ending. Thanks to the quick thinking of several folks in the immediate vicinity, including one racer’s girlfriend who is an RN, life-saving measures where implemented almost immediately.
Mertes remained unresponsive and without a pulse for all of 10 minutes but the nurse and then onsite EMTs never gave up on performing CPR and ultimately utilized gear from their rig, until a pulse was restored and Mertes was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
Later that evening Mertes became responsive and after a procedure to have two stents and a pump inserted began to improve. The next day Joel was flown to specialists in Madison, Wisconsin, where miraculously, he was later able to answer questions by writing on a white board and by Thursday, was able to speak once feeding tubes were removed.
Today, we are happy to announce that Joel’s parents were able to bring him home and a full recovery is expected!
First and foremost we want to thank everyone who helped were they could, stayed away if they couldn’t and the riders who moved off of the track to pass by in a safe manner. The reason for so much detail in this post is after being within five feet of this event while flagging riders away and seeing first-hand how long this went on without a result, we have a new outlook on how critical it is to never give up in these situations and to be as mobile as possible to aid downed riders.
Border Battle XC is going to make an effort to obtain partial sponsorship or funding to acquire an AED that will travel in our trailer to every event. We will also make sure that at least two of our staff are trained on the device and explore additional first response training, should we ever have to help in extricating riders out of the woods.
Again, thank you to everyone involved and way to go Joel. You weren’t there for most of it, but you are gonna have one heck of a story to tell.
