Hart recovering well after collapsing during Laurel Lake Triathlon, family says

Above, Curt Hart, of Corbin, posted a photo of himself with his bike near the Laurel Lake Spillway after a trial run of the 56-mile bike ride that was part of Saturday’s Laurel Lake Triathlon. He collapsed after completing the ride during the event and is currently recovering at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington.

A popular retired Corbin High School chemistry teacher and tennis coach collapsed Saturday after finishing a 56-mile bike trek during the inaugural Laurel Lake Triathlon.

Curt Hart, 58, of Corbin, remains hospitalized today and is recovering after going into cardiac arrest during the event.

“He’s doing well. He’s talking and he’s walking around. He wants everyone to know he is OK,” Hart’s stepdaughter Nikki Dixon said Tuesday. “He still has a couple of things he’s going to have to go through, but right now everything is looking good.”
Hart was one of 152 participants in the triathlon and was getting off his bike near the Laurel Lake Spillway after the middle portion of the event— a 56-mile bike ride through the Daniel Boone National Forest — when he began to have obvious medical problems.

Hart reached the transition point where the biking portion ended and the final portion of the event, a 13.1-mile run, begins when he collapsed. He was part of a team with Brent and Brien Freeman whose members was each doing a portion of the triathlon.
Race spectators and others attended to Hart, giving him CPR, for at least 15 minutes before emergency personnel arrived. Race organizers had medical professionals on site for the first stage of the triathlon, a 1.2-mile swim in Laurel Lake, but none after that.

Paramedics and EMTs used a defibrillator on Hart and continued CPR before loading him into an ambulance to await a medical helicopter. He was flown to the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington for treatment where he remains.
Freeman said Hart had recently done a trial run of the 56-mile bike ride prior to the triathlon without any problems. He said the heat could have been a factor Saturday.

Dixon said her stepfather had made the ride “lots of times” prior to the triathlon without any problems. She said regardless of the problems that happened Saturday, Hart plans to remain active in hiking and biking after he recovers. He is expected to be hospitalized another week and a half.