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Police line investigation yellow tape in Santa Barbara, California
Police in Santa Barbara, California have opened a probe after 19 runners in Sunday’s Santa Barbara Half-Marathon fell ill with what are being described as “unusual symptoms.” The runners impacted were treated at the nearby Santa Barbara and Goleta Valley Cottage Hospitals.
With every half-marathon, there are medical staff on hand to treat runners suffering from race-related ailments such as heat exhaustion, blisters, etc,. But this incident raised red flags as the number of runners seeking hospital treatment for “unusual symptoms” was much higher than usual leading many to speculate on what might have led to the spike.
Police Investigating After 19 Runners In Santa Barbara Half-Marathon Suffer From ‘Unusual Symptoms’
It was warm in Santa Barbara yesterday for the annual half-marathon with temperatures reaching 80 degrees. Some runners initially believed the heat was a contribution factor, and it very well might have been. Conversely, two hundred miles north as the crow flies in Monterey the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon was a cool 60 degrees at the start of the race. I was one of the 7,000 runners in Monterey Bay and only witnessed one competitor receiving medical attention. Weather certainly exerts an impact on performance but this appears to be far more mysterious in nature than just ‘a hot day.’
In a statement, Goleta Valley Cottage Hospitals told NBC News “this morning 19 participants arrived at Cottage EDs, a number of them with similar symptoms of undetermined cause. We are working to determine whether this is due to the heat or other factors.” They also added the number of patients seeking medical treatment was “larger than expected” for an event such as this.
Race Director David Monico told NBC Los Angeles “in years past, we’ve had overcast skies or less warm temperatures this time of year, so we have not had this many transports, but there’s always a handful. But this year, it was more than we’ve had in the past. We also had more runners than we’ve had in the past as well.”
Seemingly pointing to exhaustion and heat intolerance as the primary catalyst of the spike in hospitalizations, Race Director David Monico added “there was a lot that has been said on social media and was circulated, and so (the police are) doing their due diligence to see if there’s any facts and truth behind it. We don’t know at this point. All we know is that from our medical team and what has been reported so far is that there weren’t any unusual symptoms or circumstances for those that have been transported that you typically see at events like this.”
What are people saying about it?
His statement refers to ‘a lot said on social media’ and over on X and Threads, there is a lot of speculation. First and foremost, many people are speculating about potentially tainted water at one of the aid stations. There are posts such as this one suggesting that someone might have spiked one of the water sources available to runners though there is no credible information to back up the speculation at this point.
Aid stations were located throughout the Santa Barbara Half-Marathon course at 8 different locations including the start and finish lines. Water, electrolytes, and gels were available to runners throughout the race as is the norm in a half-marathon.
Over on the Santa Barbara subreddit, participants discussed the tainted water speculation. As for the investigation, police are asking anyone with leads to contact Sergeant Andre Miller at 805-897-2330 with any potentially pertinent information related to the “unusual symptoms.”