Brush with death takes runner from coma to competing in Marine Corps Marathon
By: David Sherfinski
Examiner Staff Writer
October 25, 2009
Five years ago, Brian Boyle was in a chemically induced coma after being hit by a dump truck. He lost 60 percent of his blood in the accident. He recalls hearing talk of "vegetable" and "nursing home" during the haze. His dream of joining the military became secondary to walking again. Or even surviving.
"It was so weird to be that numb," he said. "I was just happy to be alive."
On Sunday, after a remarkable comeback, Boyle, a 23-year-old from Welcome, Md., will be running in his first Marine Corps Marathon.
The road to recovery was anything but easy. He swam, ran track and field, and powerlifted in high school. But after the accident, it became a big deal when he was able to blink his eyes again. His eyes were open, he said, but he couldn't control them.
"Everything else was numb," he said.
When he eventually relearned how to move his eyes and lips, Boyle's body started going into convulsions. He said he thought he was "slipping into darkness," but it was something else.
"It was just my body coming back to life, very slowly," he said.
Boyle eventually went from a wheelchair to a walker, then to a cane -- losing 100 pounds while in the hospital.
He eventually made it back to the track -- albeit walking -- in December 2004 and was medically cleared to re-enter the pool in the spring. He made the St. Mary's College swim team in fall 2005. But he wanted to go further.
In 2007, he wrote to Ironman officials and expressed his desire to compete in a triathlon in the future. Soon after, Peter Henning, the executive producer of Ironman, offered him a media spot at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. The race, held every October in Kona, consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile marathon.
Boyle was "blown away," he said.
Boyle's background is in swimming, he told Henning, but in lengths of 50 and 100 meters -- "not 1.2 miles in open water."
But he said, "Let me try."
So after being cleared medically, Boyle ran a half-Ironman in Michigan in August to show officials he could handle a full triathlon.
"This was harder than Kona," he said, "because I had no idea what I was doing."
He had put together his bike only two days before and ended up crashing, running into the transition area bloodied and battered. But he finished.
That October, he competed in Hawaii, finishing in just under 15 hours.
He has been running in triathlons for the past two years but said he needed the most training in the marathon leg. So, he'll take to the streets Sunday to compete in his first Marine Corps Marathon.
Fitting, considering his family background in the military. His mother has worked for the Air Force and the Navy, and her father fought in Vietnam.
He said he would love to run the marathon in honor of the country's wounded soldiers -- many of whom he met during his rehabilitation.
"Even though I was not able to join or enlist, this is my way of being part of that and part of that atmosphere," he said.
