It may be a bit fatalistic, but it was bound to happen. A 28 year old runner, Avishek Sengupta, died after competing in the Mid Atlantic Tough Mudder. Avishek drowned in one of their signature obstacles, Walk the Plank, after failing to resurface.
Tough Mudder boasts over 750,000 participants and may be one of the safest events out there. However, there is always a risk of injury at any OCR.
I cannot speak for this particular race, but I have done the Plank last year at the MI/OH TM. It was, by far, the scariest obstacle for me, personally. At our event, we jumped at least 25 ft into a rock quarry, with water that felt just above freezing. I'm sure you can figure out what happens when your body hits 34 degree water, with an ambient air temperature roughly 10-12 degrees warmer than the water.
Our event had rescuers in kayaks to pull out anyone that struggled with the 100 yard swim post jump. Now, I do have a mild fear of heights, but what made this one a bigger fear was the shear volume of people jumping and the risk of someone jumping on you. Luckily, I didn't see anyone injured during that part (although I did see others go down throughout the race).
I can only hope that isn't the fat Mr. Sengupta suffered. In any event, I expect TM will re-evaluate the safety of this event.
Here's another write-up from Outside, which attempts to put it all into context across the OCR world. My heart goes out to Mr. Sengupta's family and friends.
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