by: Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman
As a New Yorker, I have seen the NYC Marathon many times from the comfort of a TV screen, but I had never watched it in person, and certainly not from the finish line. That would change on November 7th, 2021. On that crisp fall morning, though I had an incredible view of the finish line, I was not there as a spectator. As a volunteer EMT with Central Park Medical Unit, though I didn't know it then, I would spend the next 14 hours witnessing some of the most amazing feats of human endurance and resilience I’d ever seen. As a combat veteran, I have seen people push themselves beyond their limits in the pursuit of excellence. But those crossing the finish line of the marathon are, for the most part, not soldiers; they are everyday people who find strength within themselves that lies dormant in all of us, that most of us never get the chance to discover. Half a dozen times, I caught people who did not know they were about to fall as they expanded the final ounce of strength in their bodies and willed themselves across the finish line. I helped several people into wheelchairs who had run 10 miles on a stress fracture in their shins.
If you ever have the chance to stand at the finish line of the NYC marathon, your faith in the power of human resilience will be elevated beyond measure. You will meet people like the woman whose abusive husband shattered her foot and ankle, whose podiatrist told her she would never walk again, crossing the finish line after 26.2 miles. You will meet people like the man who lost 147 pounds to run in the marathon to honor his father who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. You will meet people like the woman whose brother died of COVID 3 weeks before the race, running in his memory, and people like the woman in her late 60’s who fell and chipped her front teeth halfway into the race and then got up and kept going. You’ll meet ICU nurses who have worked without respite over the past 20 months running in memory of the patients they couldn’t save, and volunteers who show up to help these humans across the finish line.
As a New Yorker, I have reminded myself throughout the year that these are the people I pass every day on the subway. You would never know from looking at them - they bear their burdens with grace and a quiet determination, revealing them only in moments of great emotional intensity. New Yorkers are called tough, and it is often said with a negative connotation. And while toughness can be an acronym for severe, or harsh, it is also the defining characteristic of those who refuse to let their circumstances hold them down, and who risk themselves to protect others.
CPMU Members Timmy Li left and Bernie Mack after finishing the NYC Marathon
Toughness is found in the FDNY firefighter who runs into the burning building to rescue a person he has never met; in the 22-year-old rookie cop who responds to a shots-fired call, not knowing if he will make it home to see his wife that night; in the musician, who once won an Emmy, but now finds himself in a homeless shelter because of drugs and poor decisions earlier in his life, who finds the strength to keep trying; in the ER doctors and nurses, who treated COVID patients without sufficient PPE, knowing they were risking their own lives; in the activist who calls for justice, even as tear gas envelops her face and burns her lungs; in the day laborer, who waits each morning at the corner, hoping he will be selected to do back-breaking work for minimum wage so he can afford to feed his wife and children; in the single mother, who works 3 jobs to put food on the table.
At CPMU, we work for free to give back to the brave men and women who make up the city we are lucky enough to call home. We carry the solemn responsibility of taking care of people during what is, for many, one of the worst days of their lives. Their bravery always inspires me, and never more so than at the finish line of the NYC Marathon.