At least 25 Leiden Marathon runners hospitalized with heat-related complaints

At least 25 participants in the Leiden Marathon ended up in the emergency rooms at the LUMC and the Alrijne Hospital on Sunday with heat-related complaints. As far as is known, none had to stay in the hospital overnight, Omroep West reports after speaking to the two involved hospitals.

Leiden mayor Peter van der Velden canceled the rest of the marathon at 3:00 p.m. on the advice of the Veiligheidsregio Hollands Midden. Due to the heat, a large number of people had become unwell, and the Veiligheidsregio, the local authority that covers the emergency services, reported that the hospitals’ emergency rooms were getting full.

The LUMC treated 15 marathon runners in its emergency room on Sunday. A spokesperson for the university hospital told ANP that it was a peak number of intakes, but the emergency room was still below capacity. He called the situation “manageable.” A spokesperson for the Alrijne Hospital told Omroep West that they treated 10 to 12 marathon runners. The hospital could handle the number of admissions well, she said.

A spokesperson for the Veiligheidsregio said that he had the impression that the hospitals were becoming full when the decision was made to halt the marathon. He added that the Veiligheidsregio also took the situation at the first aid stations, the ambulance services, and the other emergency services into account in its advice.

Tjeerd Scheffer, chairman of the organization behind the Leiden Marathon, said stopping the event was the “right decision” given “the situation we found ourselves in.” The organizers had already decided to cancel a 10-kilometer run that would have started later in the afternoon, and most of the participants had already finished by the time the marathon was called off, he said.

According to Scheffer, so many people became unwell because Sunday “was the first really hot day” of the year. The marathon runners did all their recent training in low temperatures and rain. Sun and heat are very different conditions to run in, he told Omroep West.