Page 45 - November 2018

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A helping hand
Of cers s e o ge ara hon r nner o nish line
n BY NICK SWEDBERG
The pain became too much for Chicago Marathon runner Edward Hensley around the 24th mile of the October race.
Fortunately, two Chicago Police Officers stepped up to make sure that Hensley reached the finish line with a little help from a borrowed folding chair — an act of kindness that drew widespread media coverage.
During an October press conference, Officer Joe Siska and Probationary Officer Alfredo Martinez spoke off their efforts to assist Hensley complete the 26.2-mile course.
“I am telling you with strong confidence that any Police Officer that would have been at my post would have done the same thing,” said Siska, who works in the 22nd District.
Hensley woke up the morning of Oct. 8 with pain in his hip, according to news coverage. He ran 24 miles before need- ing assistance when the pain overcame him. Martinez said Hensley refused to be pushed in a wheelchair, which would have disqualified him. Instead, Hensley hobbled along fur- ther.
“Every five feet he hopped on one foot. He had to stop,” Martinez said.
Eventually, the pain from a fracture grew to be too much for Hensley.
“He said, ‘My leg, it’s done. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I can’t do it on my own,’” Siska, a 10-year veteran, said. “I said, ‘If you really want to do this, we can make it happen.’”
The trio spent the nearly two hours it took to finish the race talking about the past marathons that Hensley, of Bart- lett, has run and what it is like to be an expectant father.
“I didn’t even know a marathon was 26 miles,” Siska said.
Martinez interjected that he learned a marathon is actu- ally 26.2 miles long, adding he was surprised when they hit the 26-mile mark and found there was still a little ways to go.
After they finished, Hensley was hospitalized and under- went surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He sent text messages to the officers the day after the marathon to inform them he had been diagnosed with a fractured hip.
The officers modestly accepted the attention they re- ceived, even if they would have typically tried to avoid mak- ing a big deal out of just doing their job.
“I’ve always believed that if you do the right thing or a good deed, you keep it to yourself,” Siska said. “I didn’t even tell my wife about the day when I got home. Until I started seeing pictures on social media, [Then] I knew she was going to find out.” d
O cers Joe Siska (left) and Alfredo Martinez do a television interview about their heroic e ort helping a runner in the Chicago Marathon.
O cer Joe Siska
O cer Alfredo Martinez
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ NOVEMBER 2017 45