Price at the completion of his run – credit, Keswick Mountain Rescue
A runner whose improbable resurrection from the frigid fells of north England saw his heart stopped for hours, has returned to conquer the athletic challenge that nearly claimed his life.
Tommy Price suffered cardiac arrest triggered by hypothermia while running the “Bob Graham Round,” a punishing trail run up and down 42 separate hills and small mountains known as “fells” in Britain’s Lake District National Park.
Taking its namesake from the first man who made the run in 1932, the Round is recognized as one of the most Herculean tasks in English trail running and is only considered successful if all 66 miles and 27,000 vertical feet are done in under 24 hours.
In January 2022, Price left the traditional starting point at the old Moot Hall in Keswick to complete the run in January. He succumbed to hypothermia and could no longer walk during the section along Hall’s Fell, just after the third of 42 peaks. Fortunately, he was attempting the Bob Graham with his friend Max, who had gone off to get help from Keswick Mountain Rescue.
Cardiac arrest occurred while Max was away. Rescuers made 3 unsuccessful attempts to restart his heart after finding him face down in the snow before an airlift arrived to take him to Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle. His body temperature had fallen by nearly half, to a brisk 64.4°F (18°C).
This probably saved him, one rescuer told the BBC, as the frigid temps prevented his brain and organs from suffering fatal damage while his heart wasn’t beating.
Keswick Mountain Rescue in operation around the unconscious Price – credit, Keswick Mountain Rescue
Once doctors brought Price’s body up to normal temperature again they zapped his heart back into operation and put him into an induced coma for 5 days. It took months for him to recover feeling in his hands and feet.
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BBC at the time reported that following his recovery, Price resolved to make his athletic comeback at the London Marathon to raise money for the very organization that saved his life. He competed and completed the marathon in 3 hours and 10 minutes.
Then it was time for the comeback. 5 days ago, BBC Cumbria broke the news that Price had finished the Bob Graham, 4 years after his near-fatal first attempt.
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“I am very lucky to be alive and even luckier to be able to run still,” he said. “It was unfinished business and I had to do it to finish the story.”
Keswick Mountain Rescue volunteer Jonny Hulme, who was among the first responders that reached Price on that fateful day among the fells, ran with Price along the first leg, while the man who organized his arrival at RVI, Dr. John Ferris, was waiting at Moot Hall—at the finish line—to congratulate his former charge.
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