NYC Marathon Runner Dies

What happened

Updated 2:21pm ET

Rachel Apa, 24, died after collapsing near mile 24 of Sunday’s New York City Marathon, and her father says she died of rhabdomyolysis.
Apa, a former college field hockey player from Pennsylvania, was running her first marathon to raise money for Parkinson’s disease in honor of her late grandfather.
Her father, Steve Apa, said she texted him about pain in the later miles before collapsing in Central Park, about two miles from the finish.
A bystander and race medical staff performed CPR, and staff used a defibrillator before Apa was taken to a hospital, where she died hours later.
The medical examiner is investigating and has not determined the cause of death, leaving her family’s account of rhabdomyolysis, a rare muscle-breakdown condition, unconfirmed.

How the left told it

The Guardian was the only left-leaning outlet provided, focusing on Apa’s collapse, her family’s grief and her charity run. It recounted her messages about pain and quoted her father, Steve Apa, describing her as in “perfect health, perfect shape,” while attributing the reported cause of death to him.

How the right told it

Right-leaning outlets generally emphasized the sudden death of a young athlete and her messages to her father. Fox News called the texts “chilling,” while the New York Post called them “heartbreaking” and explored rhabdomyolysis. The Washington Times also highlighted Steve Apa’s description of his daughter as in “perfect health, perfect shape.”