This is the terrifying moment a Stanford sophomore swimmer was seen floating face-down in the pool shortly before collapsing at the end of a race in Atlanta, Georgia.
Addison Sauickie, 20, was competing for her college at the ACC Swimming and Diving Championships this week when she appeared to suffer a medical emergency on the eighth lap of a 10-lap race.
In a now-viral clip taken from ESPN’s coverage of the event and shared by SwimSwamTV, Sauickie can be seen performing front-crawl in the 500-yard freestyle heats, before her arms go limp and she is motionless for around five seconds.
Remarkably, the young Stanford star – who also competes for the Team USA junior national team – is then able to continue the race, going on to finish last, a second behind her nearest rival.
Timesheets also showed Sauickie’s pace drop off considerably on the final two laps, after she suffered her worrying moment on the eighth loop of the pool.
A viral YouTube clip showed Addison Sauickie appear to suffer a medical episode mid-race
Sauickie, 20, is a sophomore swim star for Stanford and she was competing in Atlanta, Georgia
A second clip then showed the aftermath of the race, with the 20-year-old remaining in the pool for around 30 seconds while her fellow swimmers all jumped out.
With other students preparing for the next race of the day, Sauickie remains in the water and is only able to get out when she is given assistance by officials.
After being hauled from the water, she only manages a step or two away from the pool before falling to the ground as officials rush to her aid.
A chair is then brought over and she is able to sit up, where she then receives further medical attention and the action continues in the pool.
It is reported that after around five minutes, she was helped away by her coaches.
At the end of the race, everybody else gets out of the pool but she remains and needs help
Sauickie was scratched from her scheduled races on Friday and Saturday at the ACC meet
In a statement to SFGATE on Friday – two days after the incident occurred – a spokesperson for Stanford Swim said: ‘She continues to be evaluated by our medical team and her status for the remainder of the meet is unknown.’
It is still unclear exactly what happened to Sauickie in the water during the 500-yard freestyle race, but she was then scratched from the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard butterfly preliminaries on Friday.
On Saturday, she was then scratched again from the 100-yard freestyle, and it appears she will not participate further in the competition.
Sauickie won back-to-back state titles in Florida before enrolling at Stanford, and in the 2024-25 season she was included in the All-ACC Academic Team as a freshman.