How Safe Would Sugar Creek Be if we were all like Meghan Vogel and were all actively caring for each other?
Do we have the courage to do what Meghan did or the courage to accept the help and suggestions as Arden did? 24/7?
Read on…
At the state championships, Meghan Vogel had a difficult 1,600/3,200 double. She won the 1,600 in a personal-best 4 minutes, 58.31 seconds, stepped onto the podium for photos and medals, talked to the local media, and went to visit with her family.
That left her with about an hour to get ready for the 3,200, in which she was seeded seventh.
Three laps into the eight-lap race, Vogel was falling off the pace. Her mother watched from the backstretch and could tell that her daughter didn’t have the energy to contend for another title.
“By that time it was a matter of just finishing (the race),” Ann Vogel said. “I kind of joked with her about being in last place because she’s never been last. And every lap she looked at me and smiled.”
Vogel rounded the final turn for home and could see that the only other runner who hadn’t finished yet was faltering. And then Arden McMath, a runner Vogel had never met before, fell to the track.
Vogel never had a moment of doubt about what to do next.
“I remember moving to her position,” she said. “(McMath) was doing the best she could to keep her body upright. There was a lot of shake in her legs, which is totally understandable.”
The crowd cheered when Vogel stopped and the roar grew louder as she and McMath moved closer to the finish line. Vogel purposely steered McMath across the finish line ahead of her.
“It’s strange to have people telling me that this was such a powerful act of kindness and using words like ‘humanity.’ When I hear words like that I think of Harriet Tubman and saving people’s lives. I don’t consider myself a hero. I just did what I knew was right and what I was supposed to do.
”– Meghan Vogel on carrying opposing runner across the finish line
“We’re a little bit of a minority being distance runners,” Vogel said. “I think we all have an instant connection.”
A race that had become pointless in the grand scheme of the day for Vogel quickly took on a new meaning.
“I think fate may have put me (in last place) for a reason,” Vogel said.
Ann Vogel was across the track and couldn’t see her daughter when she stopped. But a coaching friend told Ann Vogel, “Ann, look up at the screen.”
She turned to the video board and saw her daughter supporting another runner on her shoulder.
“I ran around (the perimeter of the track) as fast as I could,” Ann Vogel said. “It wasn’t easy to get around with all of the people standing there but I was hearing the crowd and I could see tears running down people’s faces.”
McMath was quickly scooped up by medical staff. By rule, a runner in track or cross country is automatically disqualified for aiding another runner, but meet officials chose to leave
McMath and Vogel in the results rather than take action.
McMath was given 14th place in 12:29.90, and Vogel 15th in 12:30.24.
A half-hour after the race was over, Vogel grabbed her mother’s shoulder and said she felt dizzy and a little nauseated. Ann Vogel found a trainer and together they moved Meghan to a tent.
Vogel sat down with a cup of Gatorade on a cot that was positioned next to McMath, who was lying down and still recovering from dehydration and heat exhaustion.
“She was still pretty sick at that point,” Meghan Vogel said of McMath. “Her coach turned to me and said, ‘Thank you.’ “
The two girls will meet again, formally this time, Tuesday morning for an interview with the TV show “Fox And Friends.”
The response to her simple gesture has taken Vogel by surprise.