The Finish Line Can Wait
Sidney Long’s first half-marathon on April 4 was supposed to be about personal endurance. But less than a mile into the Oak Barrel Half Marathon in Lynchburg, Tenn., the finish line became the last thing on her mind.
The Huntsville Hospital Medical Intensive Care Unit nurse was about to face the most critical 'shift' of her career — on the side of a country road.
A man ahead of Sidney in the crowded race field had collapsed to the pavement from sudden cardiac arrest. Several other runners were already huddled around him, frantically performing CPR, when Sidney came upon the scene.
She was in race mode, but her nursing instincts took over. She bent down and felt the man’s neck for a pulse.
Nothing.
Realizing she had the most medical training of the runners who had stopped to help, Sidney made the call to continue CPR.
She didn’t know it at the time, but the man crumpled on the pavement was Lynn Collyar, a retired Army major general and former head of the Aviation & Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal.
At Huntsville Hospital, Sidney is surrounded by monitors, crash carts, and a full team. On this Saturday morning in Lynchburg, she had nothing but her hands and her training.
She and the others took turns performing chest compressions on Collyar for more than eight minutes until an ambulance crew from Metro Moore County EMS arrived.
Collyar was airlifted to Huntsville Hospital and survived his brush with death – thanks in large part to the heroic efforts of Sidney and several other runners. The good Samaritans also included Heather Alford, a nurse at New Hope Elementary School; Derek Jones, a lieutenant on the Redstone Arsenal police force; and Theresa McGuire, a family nurse practitioner from Fayetteville, Tenn., who finished nursing school in Huntsville.
Ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest is almost always fatal when it happens outside of a hospital. Collyar said he survived only because other runners started CPR almost immediately, had been trained to do it the right way, and didn’t give up even though the situation looked bleak.
“I couldn’t have fallen at a better place, at a better time, with the right people all around me,” said Collyar, who has no memories of that morning.
Added his wife, Sarah Green: “You hear so much bad news, but this just goes to show you there are still good people in the world.”
Collyar is an avid runner who also happens to have a hereditary risk of heart attacks. He planned to walk the Oak Barrel Half Marathon while his wife jogged at a slow pace. Less than a mile from the starting line, he began to sweat profusely and then collapsed without warning.
“He went down face first,” Green said. “I screamed for someone to call 911. He wasn’t moving, there was no life in his face. It was just really terrifying.”
Collyar said he was probably “dead before I hit the ground. I didn’t have a pulse for 8 ½ minutes, didn’t breathe for about 10 ½ minutes.”
Without the chest compressions performed in the roadway, he almost certainly would have died. Paramedics still had to shock his heart back to life aboard the ambulance.
At Huntsville Hospital, surgeons placed two stents to open severely blocked coronary arteries and implanted a device in his chest to serve as both a pacemaker and defibrillator.
Six weeks later, the only evidence of Collyar’s close call is some fading bruises on his face from where he hit the pavement.
He’s walking again – albeit a little slower than before – and visits the HH Heart Center three days a week for Cardiac Rehab.
After the ambulance pulled away, Sidney decided to continue the 13.1-mile race. She didn't set a personal record for time that day, but she achieved a much more significant victory: ensuring another runner could go home to his family.
“This was the first time I’ve done CPR outside the hospital,” said Sidney, who won a DAISY Award for exceptional nursing in December 2025. “Luckily, my training kicked in and helped me stay calm.”
Jones, the Redstone Arsenal police officer, received the Army’s Civilian Service Commendation Medal for his role in helping save Collyar’s life. Alford, the school nurse, was recognized as a Hometown Hero by the Madison County School System.
Green said words can’t express how grateful she is for Sidney and everyone else who chose to help that day.
“They were out there to enjoy a race but decided to stop when they saw a man down on the side of the road. They literally saved his life and should be so proud of themselves.”
