The Wilderness ARC

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Accelerate Rescued on the Final Stage

Rob Howard / 02.06.2006

In the early hours of the morning after Superfeet and Total-adventure.co.uk had finished the course, race staff were waiting for Acclerate to arrive in 4th place when news came through from CP33 that Jonathan James was unable to continue and the team needed some assistance.

Unable to raise a mobile phone signal Mark Chryssanthou and Russ Ladkin had jogged down to the marshal at CP33 with news that James could not continue. The race rescue plan swung into action and he was quickly evacuated by helicopter and brought down to Fort William for a medical check.

He was able to walk off the helicopter having recovered somewhat while waiting for assistance and after a 30 minute check up was given the all-clear and returned to HQ to be reunited with his team, safe but very disappointed to have been taken off the course 15km from the finish.

“We were going well,� said Gill Watson, “then quite suddenly Jonathan was rubber legged and couldn’t talk, and he wouldn’t come round. We’d all been imagining things and talking gibberish but this was worse and the conditions were bad. It was cold and wet with thick mist and we were at 600m, so I said to the team we would have to make the call to HQ to get some help. Jonathan couldn’t go on.�

“Mark and Russ set off down to the checkpoint and I huddled into the emergency shelter with Jonathan. It was really cold but I did get a ride in a helicopter at the end of it!�

James himself has a patchy memory of what happened. “I was seeing lots of faces in all the rocks,� he said. “We all had the SleepMonsters, but then I couldn’t distinguish what was dream and reality. I remember being fed gel and it seemed like a dream, but the sensation of eating was a real one.�See All Event Posts