Physician and marathon runner finds new strength after tragedy

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - A Tri-State pediatrician and marathon runner nearly lost her life 12 years ago after being hit by a car while riding her bike in Anderson Township.

Dr. Alison Delgado helped Colerain High School win four state championships in cross country all four years she was a student.

Then she gook on the Flying Pig Marathon after graduating from college.

“That was the spring before I started medical school and it was my first marathon ever and I actually won. The first time I won it was in 2005, which is pretty amazing. I’ve run it four more times since then,” Dr. Delgado said.

Now, every race she completes takes on a greater meaning after the accident.

“I had a broken jaw. I had a broken clavicle, broken sternum. Several broken vertebrae. I had contusions to my heart and lungs. The bleed around my brain was caused by an aneurysm that developed because of the accident,” she said.

Her doctors didn’t expect Dr. Delgado to walk out of the hospital alive but her fighting competitive spirit carried her through recovery.

”Everyday my mission was like what am I doing today to get myself back to work. And my speech I would say, people said I had the vocabulary kind of like a toddler. Like I could only say minimal stuff and I couldn’t really get my point across,” she said.

”My situation was so dire at the time so it even made me more grateful and motivated once I was out of the hospital to just say I could have died at any point during this but I’m here and I am going back to work. I’m getting my life back.”

A year and a half later, Dr. Delgado came back to the Flying Pig in 2012, beating her original time by two minutes, finishing fourth.

”I always say when I ran it in 2005, that was all for myself. That was all to prove something to myself. When I ran it in 2012 that was for something more. It wasn’t just for me. It was for everyone who helped me,” she said.

Dr. Delgado says getting a second chance at life has been a gift, making her a better physician and a better person.

”To me, I think I just learned to first of all just take it easier on myself and be more grateful. Not that I wasn’t grateful before, but I put a lot of pressure on myself. Just like you take the marathon mile by mile just take your goals one step at a time and you just always got to believe that you can get there and that you can achieve more,” she said.

Next month Dr. Delgado and her high school cross country team will be inducted into Colerain’s Sports Hall of Fame for their state championship wins.

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