High Drama
Pyro / 04.10.2010
After a fairly innocuous start to day two, drama started unfolding in the mid-afternoon. Leaving the paddle/trek section, the teams set off for another long bike stage, 63km this time, headed for Hoyos de Espino, for that most loved and loathed of race disciplines, inline skating. Here, they packed their trekking and ropework kit, picked up their skates and, in most cases, walked the first kilometre. The steep downhill opening to the stage meant few teams had the confidence to wear their ‘blades from the off. Silva-Gerber and DareDevils AR in second and third places respectively, were the exception to this, although one of the Danish team spent some of his time walking gingerly down the grass verge after a tumble on the tarmac.
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While the early teams continued up the hill on their inlines, more serious drama was unfolding further back on the course. As we arrived at the transition we were told that three teams, all in the same area, had pressed the ‘911’ button on their SPOT trackers. This alerts a control centre in the USA, who then contact the race organiser to direct him to the location. Nathan Peterson of Orion Health had taken a spill during the MTB stage, hitting his head and losing consciousness briefly. The race medical team responded very swiftly, despatching a hired helicopter and the race medics to the scene, picking Nathan up and transferring him to a larger air ambulance for transfer to hospital to be checked out. We’re told that on pick-up, he was not only conscious, but alert enough to apologise to Antonio de la Rosa for the inconvenience he was causing!
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