Pune/ Satara: Sanjay Shamrao Kadam, a 65-year-old runner from Pune, died of a heart attack while participating in the popular Satara Hill Half Marathon on Sunday.Kadam retired as senior computer scientist from Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Pune and was working as a consultant. He developed chest pain just short of the finish line and later collapsed.Cardiologist Riyaz Mujawar from Miraj in Sangli district, who was participating in the marathon, was on his way to a hospital in an ambulance with a patient in an emergency situation, when he noticed Kadam and realised that he was in cardiac arrest.Dr Pratap Gole, a member of the marathon’s medical team, said Kadam collapsed when he was running downhill. ”A cardiologist (Dr Mujawar) immediately administered CPR. An ambulance carrying one of the women runners passed by and we moved Kadam into it too. The ambulance was equipped with the emergency injections which the cardiologist administered before he was taken to a private hospital.”Cardiologist Kaushik Patil, also a member of the half marathon’s medical board, conducted an angiography and found that Kadam’s main artery was blocked, he added. “We immediately performed an angioplasty, which was completed by 10.25am, and Kadam’s condition was stable. However, he suffered a massive heart attack around 2.30pm and died,” Dr Gole added.Satara police said Kadam was an avid runner and practised daily in Pune. He is survived by wife, two children and mother.Satara Hill Half Marathon president Upendra Pandit told TOI, “The runner first developed chest pain and later collapsed. Our volunteers and medical team immediately rushed him to a private hospital, where he was pronounced dead in the afternoon. We do not know what went wrong.”Pandit added that they advise participants to train well and not push themselves too hard, given the extremely challenging route. “The half marathon has a steep uphill gradient of a few km where runners lose a significant amount of energy. Participants must plan before taking part in this event. We organise practice runs for two months before the marathon every year to prevent untoward incidents,” he added.This is the second death in the event in the last four years. In 2022, a runner from Kolhapur, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, died 200m short of the finish line.
