roscoe
Supreme Mariner
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2002
- Messages
- 21,709
Indiana bicyclist drops dead 1 day after journey across America<br /><br /><br />May 2, 2005<br /><br /><br />ANDERSON, Ind. -- A man who pedaled 2,400 miles across the country after bypass surgery had given him a second chance at life died of a heart attack one day after completing the trip.<br /><br />Bicycling provided Broc Bebout's ticket to nearly 20 years of good health after quadruple-bypass surgery at age 39, and the cross-country ride served as a testament to his commitment to exercise, said his wife, Patricia Brinkman.<br /><br />However, the day after completing the ride from Carlsbad, Calif., to Brunswick, Ga., the 57-year-old retired Delphi Corp. engineer died about 8 a.m. Thursday near Smyrna, Tenn., on the van drive back to his home in Anderson, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis.<br /><br />Pat Miller, a retired Anderson University health professor who also was among about 30 people on the cross-country ride, said Bebout was taking medication for his heart and for arthritis.<br /><br />''He had days he was very good and seemed strong, and he had days he felt like a lot of us did, slower, took longer to get in. I think he was feeling some homesickness. He had a cough for a couple of weeks,'' Miller said.<br /><br />Brinkman said her husband's living to age 57 was itself a victory. After bypass surgery at age 39, he learned to eat right and take care of himself, she said.<br /><br />In an e-mail to her Wednesday before a celebratory steak dinner, Bebout described what the trip had meant to him: ''An incredible experience with incredible people.'' She said he seemed to be thriving when she had joined him on a 60-mile leg last week in Alabama.<br /><br />''It was a trip of a lifetime,'' she said. ''We all have a list of things we like to say we did. That was right up there at the top.''<br /><br />AP<br /><br /><br />Was it the steak dinner, or did he just use up his allotment of miles?
