Philly firefighter dies at Jersey Shore triathlon

An off-duty Philadelphia firefighter died after he was found unresponsive in the water during a triathlon at the Jersey Shore over the weekend.

Firefighter Dennis “Denny” McDaniels, 36, of Northeast Philadelphia, a 12-year-veteran of the department who was most recently assigned to Ladder 15 in Frankford, was identified Monday.

McDaniels was found unresponsive in the water about 9:05 a.m. Sunday, during the Olympic swimming event at the the Escape the Cape Triathlon in North Cape May, officials said.

“He had nearly completed the initial swimming portion of the Escape the Cape Triathlon when he was found, ... in apparent cardiac arrest, by an event volunteer stationed near the course,” said Jim Salmon, spokesman for the Delaware Bay and Bridge Authority, whose Cape May-Lewes Ferry hosted the event.

Rescuers pulled McDaniels from the water, and medics administered CPR on the beach, Salmon said. McDaniels was taken to Cape Regional Medical Center in Cape May Court House, where he was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. The Cape May County Medical Examiner’s Office was scheduled to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

McDaniels was a married father of four sons, CBS3 reported.

The one-mile swim was the first event in the Olympic triathlon, followed by a 23-mile bicycle ride and a five-mile run, according to the event’s website.

According to a 2017 study of more than 9 million triathlon participants over three decades, 1.74 out of every 100,000 competitors died or suffered cardiac arrest during competition.

“The majority of deaths occur in the swim portion of the triathlon, which is the first portion of the race,” lead study author Dr. Kevin Harris, a cardiologist at Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation at Abbott-Northwestern hospital in Minnesota, told Reuters. The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.