The annual Colton’s Main Street Run is Saturday, Oct. 18 at Market Square in downtown Durant.
The 1-mile fun run/walk begins at 8:15 a.m. and the 5 and 10K runs start at 9 a.m.
Trace and Dena Sherrill, parents of Colton Sherrill, founded the run in memory of their son, who died in June 2008 at age 10 from an unknown heart defect while attending a basketball camp.
Trace Sherrill said that last year, there was a little more than 1,300 participants.
“This is our 16th year, again with our presenting sponsor, Cardinal Glass and a lot of other sponsors too, so Dena and I are very appreciative of our community support for Colton’s Run,” Sherrill said.
According to Sherrill, approximately 300-350 participated in the run during its first year.
“We were pleased as punch when we got that and it’s just growing every year,” Sherrill said.
Sherrill said the family was aware of Colton’s heart condition. Ordinarily, the heart valve has three flaps and Colton had two.
“So, he had a balloon procedure where they went in and opened up that valve and he was monitored by pediatric cardiologists after that and he loved sports,” Sherrill said. “He’d been cleared to play sports and he was a pretty active kid, but we think there was more wrong with his heart than what they could tell at the time. He collapsed at basketball and never regained consciousness.”
Colton’s death motivated the Sherrills to start Colton’s Run to raise funds to place automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in schools and other public places. This is a device used to treat someone whose heart suddenly stops.
“We don’t know really with what he had if that would have helped him or not,” Sherrill said. “It’s not something that even the doctors could say. But, it is a worthwhile thing to make sure that schools, churches, any kind of public place has these things available. We started looking around, contacting the Durant Public Schools first to see what needs they had and they had a need and then we branched out to all the county schools and now, we’ve done things with Kingston and Madill schools and some other schools here and there outside of our immediate area.
“But the biggest thing about automated external defibrillators, AED, is that, you know, you’ve been places and you’ve seen these things on the wall. We want to make sure that we have enough of those devices, number one, that they’re readily available. So, you don’t want to have to go across a school campus because you have really minutes, single-digit minutes, probably four to five minutes to use something like that. We want to encourage people through training and CPR. That they’re not afraid to take one of those off the wall and administer aid to somebody.”
According to Sherrill, AEDs are easy to use by someone without training.
“These AEDs will talk you through the process and so really, without any training, you could render aid and use it because once you follow the instructions and you put the pads on the person, the machine does an analysis and that tells you if the person needs to have a shock, press the orange button and it does another assessment,” Sherrill said. “AEDs, along with CPR training, are critical and everybody should try to have training on that. That’s the big thing, for someone to not have fear. If there’s a need, then they need to be willing to jump in there and help someone out.”
The morning of the run, there will be Main Street muffins and breakfast burritos. There will be a bounce house for children, toys, music and prizes.
Participants can sign up online at coltonsrun.com or they can sign up in person the morning of the race. Early packet pick up will be Oct. 17 at Market Square.
OK Runner from Norman will have a trailer full of running shoes and socks that will be available for purchase on Oct 17 during packet pick up time.
“We’re going to have Mark Bravo doing our announcing at the start-finish line this again this year,” Sherrill said. “Mark Bravo is the guy who announces for the Oklahoma City marathon every year. So, he’s big in the running community and we really appreciate his time and effort coming down here and of course, all the law enforcement agencies from Durant Police, Bryan County Sheriff’s Office, the highway patrol. Calera’s helped us out before and Bryan County EMS, they’ll be there to render aid if someone needs it. “We also work closely with Bryan County EMS to do some AED and CPR training, so we really appreciate those guys and their time.”
Another thing Colton’s Run has funded is the purchase of Stop the Bleed kits for all of the Durant and county schools, plus Kingston and Madill. Life-Vac choking rescue devices have also been provided.
“That was a big push over the last couple of years,” Sherrill said. “The Life Vac device, if you can’t help somebody with the Heimlich maneuver, or even in lieu of the Heimlich maneuver, it has a mask, they have to lie down, you put a mask over their face and there’s a suction thing that you pop real quick and it’ll dislodge whatever is stuck.
“It started with AEDs and then with the Stop the Bleed kits,” Sherrill said. “We saw that there was a need to have those in the schools in case of some event and so that includes a tourniquet and other things that you would need to help someone in that case. We look for things to do to help members of our community be safe and be healthy and be prepared.”
