Runner helps competitor with heat stroke cross the finish line

(Image credit: iStock)

Jesse Orach was just 100 yards from the finish line when he knew he wasn't going to be able to cross it.

The 23-year-old runner was about to win his second consecutive Beach to Beacon 10K in Maine on Saturday, but he had heat stroke, and stumbled before he could cross the line. "It kind of seemed like it was over for me," Orach told the Portland Press Herald. "Then, I felt someone pick me up." It was Robert Gomez, another runner. Gomez held Orach up and pushed him across the finish line, where he collapsed.

Both men completed the course in 31 minutes, 31 seconds, but Orach "ran a better race," Gomez said. "He gave it more than I did. I didn't deserve to win." Orach's mother, who didn't get to see him win the men's race in 2016, was there to support her son, and she was shocked by Gomez's actions. "What he did was so selfless," she told the Press Herald. "You don't see that very often."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.