Over the weekend, with less than half a mile left in the Rock n Roll Half Marathon, McCoy collapsed, busting open his face and leaving his knees bloodied.
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Several tried to tell McCoy to stop and stay down to get help, but the duo pushed on. “Hearing his plea to finish that race, I knew I had to help”.
“I went over to help render aid and he kept saying, ‘I’ve got to finish the race, ‘” Cain said afterward.
McCoy lost his father to cancer this past April. Cain was stationed as assistant commander on the street that marked the final turn before the finish line. “My heart bled for him”.
“…I didn’t do it for glory…I did it for him.”
A video uploaded to the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department’s YouTube page shows Cain running alongside the debilitated athlete, who has blood streaming from his nose. He lifted the injured man up, and slowly, side by side, the pair jogged to the finish line. McCoy was clearly banged up, but as EMTs attended to him, he insisted that he needed to finish the race. “I would’ve carried him to the finish line if I had to”.
The photo and story has gone viral, something neither one of them thought or planned.
McCoy – a cancer survivor himself – was so moved by Cain’s action that he chose to hand off his race medal to the officer who made his finish possible. I asked him if he wanted me to help him and he said yes…
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“All of the social media, the “Thank yous” that I received, the kind words that I received have been very, very humbling”, he said. “At that point, I knew he had a few mission he needed to accomplish. He in an inspiration to me, he is the hero in this story”.
