Comments on: Marathon Responsibilities and Risks https://windypundit.com/2007/10/the_chicago_tribunes_mike_down/ Classical liberalism, criminal laws, the war on drugs, economics, free speech, technology, photography, sex work, cats, and whatever else comes to mind. Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:40:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 By: Mark Draughn https://windypundit.com/2007/10/the_chicago_tribunes_mike_down/#comment-882 Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:40:40 +0000 https://windypundit.com/?p=978#comment-882 The city of Chicago’s handling of the emergency is a yet a another issue that has to be separated out. I didn’t address it here, but in a previous post I pointed out that with 300 casualties all at once, this was a test of the city’s ability to respond to a terrorist incident.

How’d we do? I’ve heard rumors of problems and breakdowns in the system, but nothing really solid.

As for the crisis itself, the heat and its effect on the runners were predictable. The city could have stopped the marathon at any time. They may, however, however, have expected that the runners would receive enough water to prevent dehydration, which brings us back to LaSalle Bank’s obligation while running the marathon.

On the broader question of whether hosting a marathon is a proper function of city government…I don’t know how to answer that.

]]> By: Jack Kelly https://windypundit.com/2007/10/the_chicago_tribunes_mike_down/#comment-881 Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:35:08 +0000 https://windypundit.com/?p=978#comment-881 “Well, of the 35,000 people who entered the race, only about 300 people collapsed. That’s less than 1 percent. Most of those who collapsed recovered just fine within hours. (Some runners even recovered before the ambulances arrived. The treatment for heat exhaustion consists of resting, cooling off, and drinking water. Simply collapsing in a heap on the ground accomplishes the first two parts of the treatment. When it comes to distance running, we humans really are built for it.)”

That’s the rosy picture. The foul one is that Chicago EMS was so strained to breaking point that it had to invoke municipal cooperation compacts to stay afloat; that suburban EMS was less than effective because they did not know Chicago & quite naturally their first & foremost duty is to their own city; that hospitals were put on diversion, with ER staffs crossing their fingers in hope no other mass health care crisis occurred, a crisis that need not have been but was because of the voluntary actions of 35,000 enthusiasts of an extreme “sport”.

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