In what a family member calls a “bizarre accident,” Delrie Rosario, 36, a mother of four, died after falling on a treadmill at an LA Fitness Center in Washington, according to Kiro 7.
Rosario was running alongside her sister, Marissa Woods, something they did nearly every day, according to the report, when she reportedly fell and hit her head on the front of the treadmill.
"She tried to slow the machine down. I thought maybe she just missed a step. She just collapsed, [and] hit her head on the machine," Woods told Kiro 7.
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Woods said her sister lost consciousness and she called for help. She told the outlet that no one at the gym knew how to administer CPR, but other gym-goers stepped in to help. Rosario later died at a hospital, according to Kiro 7.
“A mother first. Always everything she did was for kids. She worked so hard for kids,” Woods told the outlet.
In her final act, Rosario, an organ donor, saved the lives of five others.
"How big can your heart be to still be saving lives?” Woods told Kiro 7, "Just think, somebody’s walking around…with her big heart. They don’t even know what heart they’re about to get."
Rosario’s friends and family set up a GoFundMe to help support her children.
More than 400,000 people are treated per year for injuries related to exercise equipment, according to a 2019 Consumer Product Safety Commission report.
LA Fitness did not respond to a request for comment from Runner’s World.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner’s World, the author of The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a seven-time marathoner with a best of 3:31—but she is most proud of her 1:32 half, 19:44 5K, and 5:33 mile. Her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Popular Mechanics, The Wall Street Journal Buy Side, Cooking Light, CNN, Glamour, The Associated Press, and Livestrong.com.
