Ultra Runner Tommy Puzey Moves The Masses From His Hospital Bed
An earlier version of this episode originally aired on KJZZ’s 2 Lives in October of 2020. Listen for an update at the end of the episode.
An endurance athlete is someone who can run 50 miles and keep going despite the fact that blood is oozing out of his shoes. They’re really a breed unto themselves. But that’s just the sort of relentlessness you need to survive this ordeal that Tommy Rivers Puzey is going through right now.
This is 2 Lives — stories of survivors and how close calls rattle us and shake us to our core so much so that they change us and in this case and ultimately transform a whole community.
It comes from Confucius. He said, “we are all given two lives. The second one begins when we realize we have only one.” I’m Laurel Morales.
If you’ve come across Tommy Rivers Puzey on the trails around Flagstaff you might’ve done a double take. He looks like a pirate (pause) if that pirate did sit ups everyday. He’s got a nose ring, tattoos, a long curly beard and unbelievable abs.
He’s 36, an elite marathoner and ultra runner. And he wants to compete in the next Olympics. He actually ran the qualifying time twice. He came in under 2:19 but it wasn’t within the official timeframe. He’s just had a string of really really bad luck.
Last year at the Houston Marathon he experienced one of a series of setbacks.
JAKE PUZEY: He stepped in a pothole while trying to turn around and rally guys to make sure they hit the qualifying mark.
That’s Jake Tommy’s big brother. Both of them are endurance athletes and coaches.
JAKE PUZEY: You ask any other guy in that group he was like Braveheart.
But when Tommy stepped in that pothole he tore his meniscus.
Not long after that Tommy was driving home when he saw a couple fighting along the side of the road. He stopped because the man was hitting the woman.
Tommy thought he could de-escalate the situation but wound up getting beaten up himself. He took five blows to the temples, fell back and smacked his head on the asphalt but he delivered a powerful enough punch that he knocked the guy out.
He’s a physical therapist so he’s treated people with post concussion syndrome before, but never realized how dark it can get — the amnesia, the nightmares, the depression.
So his knee’s torn up he’s dealing with post concussion syndrome. Then came the incident at the Grand Canyon a couple months ago. He wanted to see if his body was ready to train again.
He ran what’s called a rim to rim to rim -- You’re at the south rim you run down to the Colorado River up to the North Rim then back down to the Colorado River then back out again. It’s 42 grueling miles. It’s an inverted mountain. A lot of people get themselves to the bottom and then realize oh crap I now have to climb back out of the canyon.
That’s actually what happened in this case. Tommy came across a woman at the bottom of the canyon suffering from heat stroke. She and her friends weren’t prepared for the desert heat so get this Tommy gave her his pack of food and water.
JAKE PUZEY: So that was at the bottom of the canyon and it was really hot. He still had 12 miles out without water or food.
So a couple days go by and Tommy attempted the same thing — rim to rim to rim. But this time Tommy was the one who crashed.
His brother Jake says by the time he got out of the canyon he was peeing and coughing up blood. Tommy thought he was just dehydrated.
JAKE PUZEY: He felt like he could probably manage it from home… And then it became more pulmonary. And so he started treating what he thought was either pneumonia or potentially COVID…
Now keep in mind this is a physical therapist. Tommy thought he knew his body better than anybody else.
He took a drive-thru COVID test. It came back negative. But just to be safe he self isolated in the basement away from his wife Steph and their three young girls.
Tommy still thought he could handle it at this point. But it quickly became something he could not deal with on his own. BRING IN MUSIC Most nights he would cough up blood, then aspirate the blood and lose consciousness.
Jake who lives in Alberta, Canada checked in with Tommy by phone.
JAKE PUZEY: He was scared and sad and frustrated but also still just optimistic. ‘It’s just pneumonia I’ll be ok or even if it’s COVID, I’ll take a couple weeks and then be back at it.’ (BRING IN MUSIC) And then Steph found him unresponsive in a pool of blood.
Steph finally forced Tommy to go to the hospital. Tommy fought her but says if she hadn’t been so persistent he may not have survived the night.
TOMMY PUZEY: This is honestly the scariest thing that I’ve ever experienced.
That’s Tommy or “Tommy Rivs,” as he’s known on social media. He made these videos and posted them on Instagram from his hospital room, which explains the background noise.
SFX: Breathing thru a bi-pap, coughing TOMMY PUZEY: This is my bi pap. This is what I breathe into and I sleep with that. It covers my entire face.
Tommy travels all over the world to race, so the doctors tested him for everything from hantavirus to the bubonic plague.
TOMMY PUZEY: The bubonic plague I’m not kidding the bubonic plague was ruled out.
His doctors just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. And they couldn’t stabilize him long enough to move him to another hospital.
But Tommy remained optimistic mostly because he’d been able to keep off a ventilator. His doctors told him all his training at high altitude had actually paid off.
But his symptoms became worse and he knew a ventilator was not that far off.
On July 16th Tommy posted this.
TOMMY PUZEY: It was just the fear of having a ventilator down my throat and not being able to communicate how uncomfortable it was and that I needed to be sedated more.
Tommy has more than 200-thousand followers on Instagram and many of them have seen these videos.
One friend started the Run With Rivs initiative, where people were invited to run, hike, swim, paddle or bike and log their miles to raise money for Tommy’s medical bills.
SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEOS: Running today in support of Tommy Rivas and his family. Team Rivas! Yooh! I committed to run 11 miles a day. He ran 11 miles to school 11 miles back from school when he was getting his PHD in physical therapy and so the least I can do is get him there. Right now I’m listening to ‘Heart of Gold.’ And those first words are already engrained in me because of Tommy Rivers. And it starts with ‘I wanna live. I wanna give.’ This is for you, Tommy!
The Puzey family has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. A Go Fund Me campaign has raised almost half a million dollars. Jake says Tommy wants whatever’s left over to go to the Navajo Nation to help fight COVID.
JAKE PUZEY: It’s kind of like a principle that we learned about in college in one of our Hawaiian studies classes the principle of Ha that we give our Ha or our breath of life to the plants and to others. But in return the plants give their Ha to us. And that’s what we are experiencing is the outpouring of this breath of life. And right now someone who’s basically dedicated his life and poured his heart and soul and breath into countless others needs our breath.
TOMMY PUZEY: It feels like your drowning on dry ground… I remember when I was little kid maybe four I swam a little bit too deep. And I couldn't swim and I couldn't touch the bottom. And I had that sense of panic where I had my head pointed completely up to where my mouth was up as high as I could get it. And then I just sunk just a little bit lower and then I breathed in some water. And luckily my older brother Jake was right there.
Jake’s been thinking a lot about all the times Tommy has been right there for him like when Jake ran his first 100-K — yeah, that’s 100 kilometers or 76 miles.
JAKE PUZEY: And so I led the first 50k and just completely blacked out and like bear hugged a saguaro cactus.
Tommy wasn’t running on this day. He was actually nursing a compound fracture in his leg but showed up at the halfway mark to cheer his brother on.
JAKE PUZEY: And I got there. And this was like mile 38. I was covered with blood but I was still in 2nd place. I looked at him and all it took was our eyes met and he laced up his shoes and he walked the last 50k with me. He walked and ran and encouraged me. He crumpled up potato chips and fed them to me because he knew that I was like suffering from heat stroke and going in and out of shock.
The brothers have always been each other’s wingman. Now Jake lives 14-hundred miles away in Alberta Canada during a pandemic. So to not be able to help Tommy now is almost too much to bear.
JAKE PUZEY: This is my worse nightmare. I would gladly be in his shoes. If I could I would. And I know just about anyone who knows him would prefer that it were them and not him.
After three weeks at Flagstaff Medical Center his team finally was able to stabilize Tommy long enough to fly him safely down to a Scottsdale hospital.
There, doctors diagnosed him with primary pulmonary and NK T-cell lymphoma. It’s a very rare and very aggressive form of cancer.
Tommy was put into an induced coma with a ventilator and what’s called an ECMO machine so he could get oxygen through his blood, and allow the heart and lungs to rest. They also started chemotherapy.
JAKE PUZEY: It’s bad it’s really bad. It may not get better. And it’s pretty daunting to accept our own mortality and when you see someone who is seemingly immortal.
At the hospital Tommy’s wife Steph has been the only person allowed to see him because of COVID restrictions.
JAKE PUZEY: He’s made eye contact with her and he’s smiled and he has shed a tear when he heard their daughter was about ready to lose her second tooth so hopefully that means he’s comprehending some of what’s being said.
Since the time of this interview Tommy is gradually improving. He’s gotten off life support. He’s out of the ICU into the oncology wing of the hospital. He’s receiving chemotherapy and preparing for a bone marrow transplant.
Jake says this wouldn’t be the first time that Tommy has cheated death.
JAKE PUZEY: I’ve been the one resuscitating him. We grew up running around doing a lot of stupid stuff from the time we were little kids. I’ve seen him come back from the dead honestly I can count at least three times I have seen him die and come back from the dead Lazarus style.
It’s that super hero part of Tommy that’s enabled him to endure insanely long races in God awful conditions that gives Jake and everybody else hope that Tommy will pull through.
JAKE PUZEY: If anyone can beat it, it’s him and his doctors feel that way but they also know the odds are against them and against him.
Even though Tommy was lying in a hospital bed, his lungs full of disease, he somehow galvanized a movement. And this is where the whole “two lives” thing comes in. He’s inspired a whole community of people to not just run a little farther but to live a little fuller and to love a little harder.
JAKE PUZEY: The gifts that he has extend far beyond realms of endurance and running. From the time he was a little boy he has always had those kind loving eyes that just pierce you and he’s had the ability to listen and to love and to understand and to make sure that people feel heard … and that they matter.
TOMMY PUZEY: One of the basic laws of physics is the law of conservation of mass, which means that you can’t create something without destroying something else or you can’t fill a void without creating another void. But love is the exception. Love is something that we can share with people. The more we share the more it grows. And the more people feel it the more people are able to reciprocate that back.
If love is enough to save Tommy, it will.
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
UPDATE: Tommy endured multiple surgeries, a tracheostomy, two chest tubes for collapsed lungs. He suffered acute liver failure, lung infections, septic blood infection. He lost 70 pounds. On some days he didn’t know his own name. He had to relearn how to talk and eat. This superman athlete even had to relearn how to use his limbs. After five months in the hospital he was finally taken off the ventilator and allowed to go home.
