Iceland boss thanks ‘hero’ paramedics after ‘almost dying’ during London Marathon

'I didn't know whether I'd had organ failure, become paralysed or suffered from long-term damage.'

The boss of supermarket giant Iceland has thanked paramedics for saving his life after he collapsed near the finish line of the London Marathon.

Richard Walker, 43, was 20 miles into the roughly 26-mile race when he felt his legs stiffen, almost as if they’d snap like twigs.

Shrugging it off as just hitting a wall, the chairman kept up the pace for half an hour, determined to complete his first-ever marathon in less than four hours.

‘The next thing you know, I came to in a St John’s tent surrounded by medics,’ he told Metro.co.uk, referring to the first aid charity St John Ambulance.

‘Apparently, I had just collapsed unconscious, couldn’t stop being sick and had a temperature of 42°C that was rising.

‘A St John’s guy said I almost died, which was quite mad… I didn’t know whether I’d had organ failure, become paralysed or suffered from long-term damage.’

The businessman had been raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK alongside colleague Simon Richard, with nearly £11,000 donated to their JustGiving page.

Even as he lay covered in ice as medics fought to lower his body’s thermostat to a more mellow 37°C, Richard said he couldn’t help but appreciate the ‘incredible heroes’ around him.

Medics said he had suffered from ‘hypothermic shock’, also called hypothermia, a condition in which the body’s core temperature drops well below average.

The body begins to shiver and blood pressure soars before shutting down altogether. If the person’s body temperature plummets low enough, hypothermia can prove fatal.

But it doesn’t have to be the Arctic for hypothermia to occur, and the sweat produced while running mixed with chipper conditions can lead to hypothermia, experts say.

‘Your body just clicks out of control,’ Richard says, admitting that he didn’t train enough for the London Marathon.

Richard is back to work now, but a near-death experience isn’t something you forget overnight. ‘Processing’ being in the foggy gap between life and death, even for a second, has been hard for him.

‘When I was lying on that stretcher, I was thinking, “Wow, life is very short”,’ he says.

The incident brought back memories of reaching the finish line of ultramarathons, which can take up to 15 hours to complete, and his casual hike up Mount Everest in May to raise money for The National Brain Appeal.

‘I’ve done extreme things and I was just shocked that this happened to me,’ Richard says, ‘my daughter told me this morning a 91-year-old ran the marathon.

‘Everyone was like, “You’ll smash it, you’ve done Everest!” I like goals and challenges, and the London Marathon was on my bucket list.

‘Annoyingly, I haven’t actually done it yet but I really enjoyed those first 20 miles. Looking at the photos, I’m cheering on the crowd as I’m running past and smiling.

‘The atmosphere was electric and brilliant.’

St John Ambulance is now trying to track down the volunteers who supported Richard, with about 44,000 volunteering with the charity as of 2022, so Richard can thank them personally.

‘They were heroes,’ Richard added, ‘they literally saved my life.’

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