Santa Barbara Half Marathon Runners Describe What Happened When They Fell Ill

About 30 runners needed medical care after Sunday’s Santa Barbara Half Marathon, and police are still investigating what Lt. Ethan Ragsdale called “suspicious circumstances.” Marathon Handbook has covered the police inquiry and the race’s statement, and three runners have now spoken about the day to the Santa Barbara News-Press in an exclusive by Angel Corzo and Kaitlin Sweeney.

Eden Pajuelo, 22, remembers nothing between heading for the line and coming to in a crowd of people, she told the paper. At Cottage Hospital, she said, a doctor doubted that overexertion alone explained her case, given how many runners were coming in. Describing how her hands looked to her, she said: “I fully thought, like, wow, am I going to be stuck like this forever?” She agreed to give more blood for the police investigation, and the results had not come back by Tuesday. “It definitely could just be the heat,” she said. “We won’t know for sure until I get my blood test results back.”

Hannah Biszczanik’s illness came the morning after she finished, when she woke up sick and ended up in hospital. She too is waiting on blood results. “It is kind of suspicious and unusual,” she told the News-Press. “I hope no one would do such a thing.” Jade Martinez-Pogue, who the paper says placed fifth, was not among those who fell ill, and doubts the aid stations were to blame. “I would find it hard to believe that one of the stations was laced,” she said.

The county health department’s view, given to the paper by spokesperson Ryyn Schumacher, is that heat and near syncope, a state of nearly fainting, fit most of the cases. The temperature had already reached 80 degrees by 10 a.m. on race day, according to a National Weather Service meteorologist quoted by the Associated Press, enough to slow most runners down. County inspectors looked at the aid stations twice before the start, and Schumacher’s Monday statement on those visits read: “Inspectors found no violations or areas of concern. All water supplies and related materials inspected were observed to be clean, properly packaged, unopened, and stored in sanitary conditions.”

When the News-Press checked in on Tuesday, Cmdr. Ben Ahrens said police had nothing new to share, and the investigation remains open.