When Kara Saunders (Webb at the time) collapsed after crossing the finish line of Event 3, “Murph,” on Friday, July 24, at the 2015 CrossFit Games, it was clear she needed immediate medical attention.
- It’s a moment in Games history that many remember and one that would be recalled following the death of Lazar Đukić at the 2024 CrossFit Games, almost 10 years later.
Adam Schulte was a volunteer sports medicine physician on the EMS/Medical team in 2015 (as well as at Regionals and the Games in 2013 and 2014) and raised alarm bells regarding health and safety concerns, both before and after the results of Murph that year.
- But many likely don’t recognize his name because after he published an op-ed critical of CrossFit on the website T-Nation in late July 2015, Schulte was never invited back to work at another CrossFit HQ-sanctioned event.
The death of 28-year-old Đukić has triggered many in the CrossFit community to speak up and recall instances in the past that perhaps should have raised bigger red flags than they thought at the time.
“The Outcome We Just Weren’t Prepared For”
Schulte, known as The Drop-in Doc, is still part of the CrossFit community. His clinic, a full-service, affiliate-based primary care facility, is located inside Resolution CrossFit in Yorba Linda, CA.
But years prior to this, he was a proud volunteer at the CrossFit Games.
- His love of the sport and interest in helping those in the community brought him back to the Games each year.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Schulte’s concerns as a medical professional reached a breaking point.
- “When I saw this happening with Murph… [it was an] outcome we just weren’t prepared for,” Schulte tells Morning Chalk Up in an interview.
A look at the Murph event at the 2015 CrossFit Games:
- 1-Mile Run
- 100 Pull-ups
- 200 Push-ups
- 300 Squats
- 1-Mile Run
Men wore a 20-pound weight vest and women wore a 14-pound weight vest.
Schulte recalls seeing Icelandic athlete and two-time Games champ Annie Thorisdottir during the second mile of Murph. As he walked with her, he noticed her skin had a white, grayish appearance and he says she seemed disoriented.
Thorisdottir ultimately withdrew at the end of the next day of competition due to heat stroke.
Note: The temperature in Carson, CA, reached 86-87°F on July 24, 2015, but in our interview with Schulte, he says the temperature on the turf clocked in higher after prolonged sun exposure.
Saunders’ collapse has been well-documented, but another competitor that year, 18-year-old Maddy Myers, also withdrew a few hours after Murph and was hospitalized with rhabdomyolysis, a condition where your muscles break down after extended periods of intense exercise without rest, often exacerbated by heat exposure.
However, medical professionals were not empowered to take an athlete out of competition, according to Schulte.
- “We didn’t have the autonomy to do that. It was basically, ‘Hey, if an athlete’s still going, you ask them if they want to keep going,’ and you just let them keep going,” Schulte says.
Emily Abbott, a Games competitor in 2015, also shared her thoughts on Murph with Emily Beers, currently a senior writer at Morning Chalk Up.
At the time the two spoke in 2015, Beers was writing for Blonyx, a sports nutrition company.
“Abbott told me she felt it was a dangerous event and was the worst thing she’d ever done in her entire life,” Beers says, recounting her 2015 interview.
- Abbott also told Beers in 2015 that, “My fingers actually bubbled up and blistered on the bar because it was so hot. I had to pop four blisters after that event.”
Blonyx published this interview on July 24, but the following day, Abbott contacted Beers, scared and upset because, as she said at the time, Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games, chastised and berated her at the athlete briefing that morning (Saturday, July 25) in front of all the other competitors.
- In a Facebook message to Beers, Abbott stated that Castro “tore a strip off me” and pleaded that the interview be removed from the Blonyx website, which it was, immediately.
“Damaged Goods”
Though Schulte had expressed his concerns to CrossFit following his experience at previous Games and Regionals, the Murph aftermath was enough to trigger him to write his T-Nation op-ed and express grave concern for the athletes following the 2015 season.
In the article, Schulte painted a negative picture of CrossFit HQ and what he perceived to be a lack of interest in giving medical professionals a seat at the table or in developing a medical oversight division.
In the op-ed, Schulte noted the thermal hand injuries athletes sustained during Murph:
- “CrossFit Games staff did not provide any protective covering of the pull-up rig between heats despite this being a known mechanism of injury to numerous masters athletes at the 2014 Games.”
These are the same “blisters” Abbott referred to in her 2015 interview with Beers.
The article received considerable attention at the time. In an email from T-Nation, obtained by the Morning Chalk Up, the article, published in late July, received over 200,000 views in less than 24 hours. According to a later email, the article had 407,000 unique views as of September 24, 2015.
Note: Morning Chalk Up obtained all email correspondence through Schulte.
Even before writing the T-Nation op-ed and before the 2015 Games, Schulte had contacted the head physician in charge at HQ — Dr. Mike Ray, co-founder of CrossFit Flagstaff and the Medical Director of the CrossFit Games — who oversees the medical teams onsite at the event.
In an email to Dr. Ray on May 13, 2015, Schulte requested more clarity on the emergency preparedness plan (EAP) and expressed concern “that non-medical personnel might…impede or restrict the delivery of indicated medical care by a licensed physician that’s acting within their scope of expertise.”
Given these discrepancies, Schulte also felt “concerned about liability issues as a volunteer physician.”
- “Multiple attempts to reach out to members of HQ regarding this has quizzically been met with resistance,” Schulte said in the email.
Schulte received a lengthy reply from Dr. Ray on May 14, 2015, in which Dr. Ray deflected any responsibility for the EAP or involvement in Regionals competition [a stage of the Games season at the time].
- He acknowledged Schulte’s concerns and added: “The culture at CrossFit HQ, starting at the very top, reacts very strongly and very negatively to feeling threatened, bullied, directed, regulated and/or manipulated.”
Later in the email, Dr. Ray stated: “You are meeting resistance because you are coming on very strong, using language that suggests they are doing it wrong, including veiled threats about liability, and that the all-knowing you will make it right and you are meeting resistance because they question your motives.”
He continued and implied that Schulte would no longer be welcome in any Regionals or Games preparation “under essentially any circumstances.” And Dr. Ray said that while Schulte’s concerns may be valid, his approach was all wrong.
- “At this time I believe that you are ‘damaged goods,’ Dr. Ray wrote. However, it is unclear who at CrossFit would have made the decision to specifically exclude Schulte. Though Schulte still worked the 2015 Games, it would be his last.
Note: Dr. Ray did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Morning Chalk Up.
In early 2016, Schulte sought to volunteer again on the medical team for the CrossFit season, but Dr. Ray confirmed in an email that he wouldn’t be selected.
- “You may have had a valid message before the Games last year, but it was lost in the way you presented it,” Dr. Ray wrote in an email dated February 5, 2016.
Following this email exchange, Schulte added an update to his T-Nation op-ed. It read:
“I received word recently that CrossFit will not be allowing me to take part in any volunteering capacity this Games season. This is all-encompassing. That means staff members were told I was not to be a part of any Regional event medical team service.”
“If This Is Wrong, It’s Always Been Wrong”
While Schulte’s relationship with HQ might have been shuttered, he went on to create one of the most impactful changes possible at a CrossFit affiliate level through The Drop-in Doc.
However, Schulte tells Morning Chalk Up that he feels guilty for not being able to effectively communicate his concerns to HQ back in 2015.
- “If I could have just found the right words, the right approach. Then again, I don’t think any of us, whether we’re athletes or volunteers, nothing could have snapped them to attention and gotten them to make the perfect changes,” Schulte says. “But it should not have taken the death of an athlete to reach this point to where now their hair is on fire and they feel like they need to change everything.”
As the dust settles on the 2024 Games and the tragic death of Lazar Đukić, athletes have had time to reflect, many are coming out and speaking out against HQ and the unsafe actions they have taken in the past.
- One voice is that of Brent Fikowski, president of the Professional Fitness Athletes’ Association, a veteran of the sport and a vocal advocate for athlete safety.
Schulte tells us he is glad athletes are starting to speak out and align with the same concerns he brought up almost ten years ago, but at what cost?
- “It makes me sick to my stomach to say this. But I hate that it takes this type of catastrophic event to spur them [athletes], but I think that it’s emboldened now because it makes them so mad and upset that they no longer worry about the repercussions,” Schulte says.
Athletes are having a moment of clarity and “shoring up the numbers and saying, if this is wrong, it’s always been wrong.”
- CrossFit Community Looks to Athletes on Social Media, Aims to Connect With Đukić Family
- “He Was There, Then He Was Gone”: Former Lifeguard Gives Eyewitness Account of Lazar Đukić’s Death
- “You Loved the Sport That Didn’t Love You Back”: Luka Đukić Comments on Brother Lazar’s Death
Featured image: Scott Freymond
