A mother of four has died in a freak accident while exercising at an LA Fitness gym in Washington state.
Delrie Rosario, 36, fell and hit her head on a treadmill at the gym in the city of Kent on Friday 21 July, her grieving family told KIRO-7 News.
Her sister Marissa Woods told the news site that Rosario had tried to slow down the machine when she missed a step and collapsed, hitting her head on the treadmill.
“I was screaming, you know, ‘Anybody, just please help! Anybody know how to do CPR?” Ms Woods told KIRO-7 News.
While other gym-goers stopped exercising to help, none of the LA Fitness staff came to her aid, Ms Woods said.
LA Fitness did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Independent.
Ms Woods said her sister failed to regain consciousness and was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Her heart, lungs, kidneys and liver have since been transplanted to save the lives of five people on organ donor waiting lists, she added.
Delrie Rosario, 36, was a devoted mother to her four children Delaino, Rickey, Ric’Kae and Delaiah.— (GoFundme)
“(She’s) saving lives. How big can your heart be to still be saving lives?” Ms Woods told KIRO-7 News.
“Just think, somebody’s walking around…with her big heart. They don’t even know what heart they’re about to get.”
Rosario was a devoted mother who worked two jobs to provide for her four children Delaino, Rickey, Ric’Kae and Delaiah, her sister added.
An LA Fitness gym in Kent, Washington state, where Delrie Rosario died after falling from a treadmill— (KIRO-7 News)
On her Facebook page, Rosario described herself as “The Momma”.
Her friends have set up a GoFundme page to help support her surviving children, which had raised $24,000 of a $50,000 target by Thursday.
“Among the many incredible qualities she possessed, being an amazing Mother was top of the list,” organiser Noelle Meluskey wrote.
“Heartbreakingly she has left behind four beautiful children.”
While deaths on treadmills are rare, with only three to four recorded each year, thousands of people are injured annually, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Treadmills account for the highest number of exercise-related injures suffered in the home, the commission said.
Some 15,800 patients were treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained on treadmills in 2020, compared to 22,500 in 2019, according to figures provided to the Washington Post.
Experts recommend giving the exercise machine plenty of space, always using the safety key, and never stepping off a moving treadmill.
