The wife of a Quebecer who died during a half-Ironman in Texas is speaking out

He turned 50 this year and his widow, Véronique Tremblay, says he set himself the goal of completing an Ironman to mark the milestone.

This text is a translation of an article from CTV News.

The grueling event requires a lot of preparation, so in addition to training at home in Montreal, he signed up with a friend for a half-Ironman in Galveston, Texas, on April 7, 2024.

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Mrs. Tremblay, who usually traveled with her husband and shared her love of racing, remembers the last time they spoke. It was on FaceTime and Alain had just finished refueling to prepare for the big day.

“He was happy,” she said. “I told him to be careful.”

She added that he was in very good health and had even gone to the doctor the week before he left.

The next morning, during the first leg of the triathlon – the swim – something went wrong. According to ms. Tremblay, he raised his hand to ask for help. What happened in the minutes between the signal and his arrival at the hospital is now part of an investigation the family started through Houston attorney William Moye.

According to Ms. Tremblay indicates witness accounts that there may have been a delay in getting help.

“It’s not like it was floating in the air and they didn’t notice,” she said. “He raised his hand for help. Then witnesses came forward and there were reports that there were problems.”

The loss of her husband, the father of her two teenage sons, was devastating. “He was my best friend,” she said.

Organizers did not respond to an interview request from CTV News. An autopsy has been performed, but the results will not be available for several months.

Fatalities during Ironman events are rare, but they do happen. The vast majority of these deaths occur during the swimming portion of the triathlon.

Dr. Richard Gold, an anesthesiologist at Duke University, has spent years studying deaths that occur during triathlons.

He explains that while most people assume these deaths are related to heart attacks, the facts show there may be another reason.

“If it’s a heart attack, for example, you can expect people to be exposed to the same stress when it comes to exercise, whether they’re running or cycling or swimming . And yet there are very few deaths during the dry parts of a triathlon,” he said.

“This got me thinking that there could be another explanation, which I wanted to explore, and that was swimming-induced pulmonary edema (SIPO).”

This edema occurs when the lungs fill with fluid from inside the body instead of water. He explains that some people are more susceptible to the condition, and that research is used to determine risk factors and prevent deaths.

Mrs. Tremblay, for her part, prepares her husband’s funeral.

“He was the driving force of our family,” she lamented. “In the last moments I had with him before his death, I asked him to give me the strength to continue leading our family the way he did.”