Monday afternoon on the Midway Plaisance was a sweltering, hazy kind of hot, and running under the unrelenting sun were a few dozen men and women playing flag football in the Gay Games.
About 25 minutes into the game, Randy Claros, a bear of a linebacker, felt his calves cramping up. Then, as he cut in to tackle the quarterback, his whole body spasmed, and Claros fell to the ground.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” he cried out as players rushed to his side and called out for Gatorade. Minutes later, an ambulance stationed nearby pulled up, and paramedics loaded Claros onto a stretcher, taking him from the field to the ambulance.
With barely any shade or breeze on the Hyde Park field, the athletes were dropping in Monday’s heat, which reached a high of 95 degrees and plagued some California players who are used to the heat, but not the humidity.
“It’s rough, we’re all sluggish,” said Barry Chandler, 28, a former Villanova University football player who was playing in the Gay Games with the Los Angeles 6th Street Knights. “Everybody’s down and irritated, and there’s been bad cramping.”
Claros, 28, and playing with the San Diego Expendable, lay prone in the air-conditioned ambulance as paramedics gave him fluids and waited for him to cool off. There were no plans to take him to the hospital, and paramedics said Claros would be fine to play later this week, but there was no chance he would re-enter the game.
The scenario played out multiple times Monday, the third day of the Gay Games and the second day of 90-degree temperatures, with two competitors needing to be transported to the hospital for heat-related distress, according to Gay Games medical director Wyatt Jaffe.
In all, Jaffe said, 20 athletes were treated by ambulance, for both heat-related ailments or physical injuries.
Some had to get IV’s on-site, while other athletes, like Channing Sheets, 29, a beach volleyball player from San Francisco, had to forfeit because of cramping.
“I don’t care,” Sheets said, “because my bread and butter is my indoor team.”
A runner in the 10K race Monday morning collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, said Gay Games volunteer Michael Miller, who witnessed the collapse. Miller said the runner was fine after sitting in a cooling center.
“It was more like he had to take an immediate seat,” Miller said.
On Sunday, three people were transported to the hospital, Jaffe said: a cheerleader, a volunteer and a tennis player. The cheerleader, who was disoriented from the heat at Millennium Park, stayed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital overnight and was released Monday, said Gay Games spokesman Kevin Boyer. The volunteer and the tennis player were discharged Sunday.
Athletes said they have been impressed with the Gay Games’ response to the heat, which included stocking more ice and beverages than originally planned.
Temperatures were expected to fall to the low-80s Tuesday, but Jaffe said people shouldn’t get too comfortable.
“If you’re going out and playing every day, your body doesn’t have time to fully recover from the heat,” Jaffe said. “It’s worse on the third day.”
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aelejalderuiz@tribune.com
