He Collapsed at the Finish Line, but His Superhero Was There

In November 2025, Leah Meyer, a fourth-year student at Tufts University School of Medicine, made her way to the starting line of the Cambridge Half Marathon. She had no idea that by the end of the race, she would put her medical training to the test to save the life of Zafar Saifi, a fellow runner and 30-year-old professional who went into cardiac arrest at the finish line. 

Five months later, Leah and Zafar sat down to have a conversation and reflect on the events of that day.

Transcript

Leah Meyer: I decided to sign up for the half marathon because I was in my third year of medical school, which is when you do your core clinical rotations, and it’s a really intense time. And I figured if I could train for a half marathon during my third year of medical school, I could do pretty much anything.

Zafar Saifi: A couple friends of mine convinced me that running a half marathon would be a great idea. So I signed up and went for it about four weeks prior to the race. I was feeling pretty good. Woke up, a quick warm-up jog with a bunch of my friends. It was awesome. It was like people everywhere. The vibe was electric.

Meyer: Yeah, it was a gorgeous fall morning. So, I mean, I was definitely nervous. It would be the longest that I had ever run. But the air was crisp and cool, and it was beautiful. And the vibes were great, as you said.

Saifi: I was just kind of jogging my way along. I was feeling like I was pushing myself. My head was in a good spot. Everything was positive. You know, it kind of felt like a normal day.

Meyer: Around mile nine, I saw my husband and a bunch of our neighbors, and our little 8-year-old neighbor was holding up a sign for me. And my knee felt like it was about to just explode, so I had to take a little break and walk a little bit. But then for the last several miles, I just kind of kicked it into gear, and I knew that I could eat as many bagels afterwards as I wanted to.

Saifi: The amount I thought about food during that race was outrageous. Like, so much food.

I remember seeing this big American flag and just sort of being like, okay. That’s it. Let’s run and get it. I remember crossing. I remember them putting a medal on me. And then I remember feeling a little bit lightheaded, so I walked over to the fence. And then lights out. Don’t remember anything else.

Meyer: I crossed the finish line, totally gassed. They put a medal around my neck, and I sort of walked for a couple steps. And then I looked off to my left where the spectators were, and I saw this guy. And I was like, is he trying to crawl through the barrier fence? And a second later, I realized, oh, no. He’s not crawling. He’s down.

So I ran over and started to try to pull him back through the fence so we could get him laid down. I couldn’t do it by myself. I shouted for help for another runner to come help me. There was a spectator there who said, ‘I’m a nurse.’ She checked your pulse. It was thready. And then she did a round of compressions. I said, ‘I can tap in whenever you need me.’ Then I took over.

As EMS came over, they got the defibrillator ready, checked your rhythm, and gave you a zap. And then I just kept giving compressions until the experts got there. They loaded you into the ambulance and took you away, and I just started sobbing. That was the first time that I’d ever been involved in a code.

Saifi: I woke up in the ER. It was foggy. Wasn’t totally sure what happened. But the doc, he told me that I had gone into cardiac arrest. But I don’t remember being particularly scared. I think I was still processing everything that had just happened.

And I was in pain, but it was mostly my legs because I had just run 13 miles. My wife, I think she had called a bunch of times. Somebody in the ambulance picked up the phone and told her that I was heading to the hospital and what had happened. At that point, she didn’t know if I was still breathing or not.

I remember she came running through the doors. It was really nice to see her.

Meyer: Afterwards, the crash of just having run a half marathon and then having a second adrenaline rush, it was pretty rough coming down from that. I looked down at my phone. I saw that I had these missed calls from my husband because I was supposed to meet him at the finish line.

And I called him, and I just bawled my eyes out. The worst part was that I didn’t know what happened to you.

It just so happened that I had another Tufts classmate who was working in the medical tent at the race, and she saw me. She saw all this go down, and she called me afterwards to debrief. She was also able to give my name to the race director. And so I knew just half an hour later that they did get return of spontaneous circulation and that you were neuro intact, that your brain was working. And I was like, oh, thank God.

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Zafar Saifi (pictured, right) and his wife gave Leah Meyer (left) a red superhero cape when they met up for coffee in the weeks after the race. Both are also wearing their Cambridge Half Marathon medals. Photo: Courtesy of Zafar Saifi

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Zafar Saifi (pictured, right) and his wife gave Leah Meyer (left) a red superhero cape when they met up for coffee in the weeks after the race. Both are also wearing their Cambridge Half Marathon medals. Photo: Courtesy of Zafar Saifi

Saifi: When we got in the hospital, nobody could figure out what happened. So they ran a bunch of tests looking for some rationale. They kept me there for a couple days and then decided that because it happened once, it could maybe happen again. And so they decided to put a defibrillator in me.

Not quite a pacemaker. Just shocks you. If anything happens again and there’s no Leah around, I’ll just get shocked. And I like to say that I’m everyone’s first cyborg friend.

My wife had actually reached out to the race director and had gotten your name. And so that’s how we ended up reaching out.

Meyer: Probably shortly after you got out of the hospital, I got a call, and, it was originally a missed call. And then I saw a text and a voice mail. I was like, oh my gosh. It’s the guy! I didn’t even know your name yet.

And we chatted. You told me everything that happened from your perspective. So we all met up, the four of us—me, Zafar, and our spouses—at one of our favorite Cambridge coffee spots and just chatted. And it was awesome.

Saifi: My favorite part of that meeting was just that we actually got along really well. We had such a fun coffee. We ended up buying Leah a cape.

Meyer: He bought me a superhero cape.

Saifi: So after we got coffee, we took a picture with our medals from the race, and she was my superhero.

Meyer: I still have it. It’s on my bookshelf. I see it from my desk.

After they put you in the ambulance, there was all this kind of detritus on the ground, like caps from the epi that they gave you. I was helping someone clean it up, and I was like, you know what? This is weird, but I’m going to keep this. And so I have a couple of red and green caps in a tiny little bowl on my desk. When I am thinking about how I do not want to be studying right now, and so I look at that, and I’m like, you have got to keep going because it’s going to benefit someone someday.

Saifi: No. That’s awesome. I am curious, though, just from your perspective. You’re in school for however many years, and you’re talking about all these things in the abstract. And then one day, somebody’s there in front of you. What kicked in? Was it training or instinct, or what was it?

Meyer: I guess maybe I have a certain willingness to be like, this is a situation where someone needs help. I’m just going to go for it. I don’t necessarily know everything to do, but I’m going to try. Shout out to Tufts University School of Medicine for making sure that I was basic life support trained.

Forgive me for probing, but how are you doing after having this traumatic thing happen to you?

Saifi: I think there’s a shock in what happened. I had a bunch of people asking me, oh, did you write anything down? Did you think about this a lot? And I did a little bit, but I think at the end of the day, it was more: So you have more time; what are you gonna do with it? Everything now is extra.

Meyer: I’m just really glad you’re okay, man. I’m really glad you’re okay.

Saifi: Me too. Me too. Thank you.

Meyer: I’d say anytime, but I don’t want to give you license to have it happen again.

Saifi: I think once was good. Once was good. And now I have a really good friend out of it too.

Meyer: Yeah. There you go. Me too. Likewise.