Some heroes wear capes. Others wear running shoes. When not wearing his stethoscope, Dr. Theodore Strange, an internal medicine specialist from Staten Island, is the latter. He was 16 miles into completing his 25th NYC Marathon when a scream for “help!” on the course led him to saving a woman’s life.

According to silive.com, Strange jumped into action just after crossing the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan when he saw a woman lying unconscious on the course as her distraught friend called out for medical assistance.

The woman wasn’t breathing, she didn’t have a pulse and she was foaming at the mouth, so Strange began CPR as NYPD, FDNY and EMS workers surrounded them.

Within minutes, he received a defibrillator after asking for one when his chest compressions weren’t effective.

Strange grabbing some orange slices from a friend at mile 14. Photo: Victoria Strange

“After two or three more shocks, she was breathing on her own,” Strange recalled.

However, the woman still wasn’t conscious. She was transported to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center just up the road and, as Strange was watching emergency responders load her into the ambulance, he made the decision to continue on with his race.

“While we were waiting, a police officer asked me what I was going to do next,” Strange told Runner’s World. “I told him, ‘I have to finish this for her.’”

His family, meanwhile, noticed that his progress on the course had stopped, so they began to worry until he eventually arrived at their designated meeting spot on 68th St.

“It was a surreal moment. When I reached them, I honestly broke down,” he said.

Strange ended up finishing the 26.2 miles in 5 hours and 16 minutes, but his most meaningful moment, by far, came at mile 16.

“People have been calling me a hero, but I was just doing what I was trained to do,” he said. “We have a saying in New York: ‘If you see something, say something.’ But my philosophy has always been, ‘If you see something, do something.’”

As for the woman who went into cardiac arrest, she’s a 41-year-old Ironman finisher who went down on the course due to a blood clot in her artery. According to her family, she’s currently in stable condition.