The family of a Kansas college cross county runner has set up a Go Fund Me page after she was found unconscious in a field during practice last week.
Delia Montes, a freshman at Dodge City Community College, is in critical condition at a Wichita hospital, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. The Ford County Sheriff’s Office called in the KBI after Montes was discovered last week.
This is the first criminal investigation into a heat related incident at a Kansas community college. Despite calls from the families, criminal investigations were not launched into the deaths of football players at Garden City Community College and Fort Scott Community College.
Montes’ uncle is with her in the hospital.
“Her road to recovery is a long one and my uncle is the only parent she has so he’s having to miss work to be by her side,” the page said.
The money will be used to help pay his expenses.
Montes was taken to Catherine Hospital-Dodge City and then airlifted to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.
The college, citing privacy laws, has provided scant information. It did say in a statement that the practice was “monitored according to the Heat Policy put in place by the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference. As such, the practice was well within the established guidelines of this policy.”
Coaches and trainers must know both the air temperature and humidity, according to the guidelines.
“The higher the humidity the harder it is for student athletes to cool their body temperatures,” the document said.
The college did not provide specific weather data. Online records show the high last Thursday in Dodge City was 101 degrees.
This case is unusual not only because of the criminal investigation, but because most heat incidents involve big football linemen, not small cross-country runners. Smaller athletes can dissipate heat more easily, lowering their risk of dangerously overheating.
“If we look back at the last 20 years of football exertional heat stroke deaths, 97% of them have been linemen. And of the high school players, 100% of them were linemen,” former University of Oklahoma head trainer Scott Anderson said.
There have been two other heat stroke football deaths in Kansas in recent years.
Ovet Gomez Regalado, a 15-year-old Shawnee Mission Northwest sophomore-to-be, died of heat stroke complications at a pre-season workout last August.
Myzelle Law, 19, was a sophomore defensive lineman at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe. He died in August 2023 following a week in the hospital after his body temperature hit 108 degrees during a preseason workout.
