UW-Madison pharmacy student Adam Nickel died shortly after completing a marathon Sunday, according to race officials.
Nickel, 27, collapsed just after he crossed the finish line at the sixth-annual Little Rock Marathon, race officials said.
After collapsing at the finish line, the medical team addressed the needs of the runner,"" race director Gina Marchese-Pharis said in a statement.
According to race officials, emergency respondents attempted to revive Nickel using CPR and a defibrillator when paramedics arrived.
Marchese-Pharis said Nickel was taken to the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital where medical personnel pronounced him dead.
Nickel, originally from Kaukauna, Wisc., was in his third-year studying pharmacy at UW- Madison. Jeannette Roberts, dean of the UW Pharmacy School, said Nickel was actively involved in Wisconsin Society of Pharmacy Students, a professional student organization.
As an undergraduate, Nickel attended Lawrence University in Appleton, where he graduated in 2003. Molly Johannessen, Nickel's friend and classmate at Lawrence, said he was a passionate runner and described him as her ""running buddy.""
""Every time I saw him, he wanted to know what I was training for and how it was going,"" Johannessen said, adding Nickel seemed ""addicted"" to running.
""He truly cared more about everyone else than he ever did about himself.""
According to Nickel's ""Team in Training"" website, he ran marathons to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of his grandmother, Laurine Schmidt, who died of lymphoma in 2002.
""She has always inspired me to help others, and I am finally ready to share her spirit,"" Nickel wrote on the website.
Members of the pharmacy school plan to work with Nickel's family to organize a formal way to honor his memory, according to Roberts. She said the outpouring of support among students and faculty in the wake of Nickel's death has been touching.
""I think it's kind of amazing to see people pull together and be more worried about comforting each other and honoring Adam's memory as opposed to their own problems,"" Roberts said.
""It's really heartening to see that.
