Day 1 from a staff point of view

Not a cloud in the sky so of course it was cold, 32 degrees leaving Crested Butte. Dion and I were working at Aid Station 4 to open and man the first shift. It is slow going on mountain roads with so many cyclists to drive past but after 90 minutes and 50 miles latter, we arrived.
Our truck arrived shortly thereafter and we set up and things were relatively quiet. It was such a beautiful day and we were so close to the top of Cottonwood Pass, we had spectacular views of the Mt Princeton 14er peak as well as Mt Massive. Both had plenty of snow which added to the scenery.
We didn't get many cyclists until about 11 am because they had a pretty stiff climb of 30 miles just to get to us. 14 miles were on dirt road which was actually in pretty good shape all things considered.Our aid station ran rather smoothly but just as we were going off shift, one of our worst nightmares happened.
A cyclist just one mile before our aid station went into full cardiac arrest. We all carry radios so we can respond quickly to any development. Within seconds, three of our riding medics were on scene giving rescue breaths and chest compressions. Within 5 minutes, the sag with the oxygen and AED arrived and the medics were able to shock him using the AED and a heartbeat was established. One of our two ambulances arrived again within 5 minutes and the patient who was now breathing again was loaded onto the ambulance where advance medical treatment was administered.
The rider was the front end of a tandem with his 13 year old daughter on the back. Several staff volunteers, took care of the daughter and loaded the bike onto one of our sag vehicles for transport. Along with 2 of the Colorado State Troopers the ambulance went as quickly as possible under police escort to the hospital where we had a flight for life helicopter waiting to transport the patient to Denver.
It all turned out well as the rider was totally coherent before even arriving to the local hospital. The daughter was being cared for by the medical liaison volunteer until her mother arrived from Denver. The rider is now well on the road to recovery in a cardiac wing. The rider went from no heartbeat or breathing to being totally stable with a great prognosis.
When you are staffing a ride this large things happen but we sure don't want them to. The day calmed down and very few of the riders actually knew anything happened and were able to fully enjoy the ride.