Incident Reporting

Race directors must ensure that all athletes have signed race waivers and provided emergency contact information (it is advisable to remind athletes not to use their own information or information for people who cannot be easily contacted on race day).

You should also ensure that your event staff, medical staff and/or volunteers know what to do if an incident or critical incident occurs. You should ensure that incident reports are easily accessible during your event. If it is easier for your medical and event staff to have a digital or hard copy (or both) available and easily accessible to fill out, please use this template. However, all reports should be ultimately uploaded via the portal (you may upload them the following day, if necessary).

Incident reports should be uploaded to USA Triathlon’s online portal, USA Triathlon Incident Reporting.

An incident report MUST be filled out for every athlete that is treated on the course or comes into medical, and for any property damage that is sustained during an incident. Incident reports must also be completed if a volunteer, race official, or event staff member is injured.

Any athlete that is involved in an incident, crashes or gets injured on course in any way should be required to go to medical to get checked out and have an incident report completed, regardless of how minor the injury may be. If the athlete is hesitant to go to medical or provide information, please let them know that an incident form is required for them to use the USA Triathlon Participant Accident coverage provided by their USA Triathlon membership. If the athlete does not wish to go to medical or refuses treatment, an incident report form should nevertheless be completed.

Some medical staff may be apprehensive of sharing the personal information on the incident report due HIPAA laws, but as they are a hired contractor at your event and are working for you, they are allowed to share that information with you. Additionally, the athlete was participating at your event and signed your waiver so you have a right to that information in order to protect yourself and USA Triathlon.

When filling out the incident report form, it is important to:

• Collect as much athlete contact information as possible
• Ensure your medical team is being detailed when they fill out the description of the injury
• Be very detailed in recording the cause of the incident
• Collect as much information about the incident as possible, including witnesses names and contact details, photos, videos, if applicable

If an incident occurs which results in property damage, you should report this to USA Triathlon using the incident report. When filling out the incident report form, please provide as much information about the damaged property and the cause of the incident as possible. In addition, collect as much information as possible, such as photos, videos and witness information.

Incident reports should be uploaded to USA Triathlon’s online portal, USA Triathlon Incident Reporting.

If an athlete would like information about the USA Triathlon’s Participant Accident Insurance coverage, please refer them to insurance@usatriathlon.org.   

We hope you never need to use this procedure, but the unfortunate reality is athletes do end up in the hospital on a regular basis due to circumstances out of anyone’s control. We want you to know that we are here for you in the event of a critical incident at your event.

We have put together this Critical Incident Response Checklist to assist in this situation. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with it before the race.

If a critical incident occurs, please take the following steps:

1. Contact USA Triathlon Certified Race Official or call USAT directly, if there is no USA Triathlon Certified Race Official onsite.
• Primary Contact: Brad Hildebrandt – brad.hildebrandt@usatriathlon.org | 402.578.7039
• Secondary Contact: Kathryn Murtaugh - kathryn.murtagh@usatriathlon.org | 917-747-8574
• Membership Hotline: 719.725.2209
2. Inform the athlete’s emergency contact of the situation (if you haven’t already) and encourage them to head to the hospital.
3. Collect witness information and statements from staff, spectators, volunteers, police, first responders, lifeguards, etc. - anyone that was involved with the incident or witnessed it first hand. These can be written or recorded in the interest of time. Also obtain names, telephone numbers and email addresses.
4. Complete an incident report as soon as reasonably possible with as much information as you can gather and submit within 24 hours of the incident: USA Triathlon Incident Report Portal.
5. USA Triathlon can provide Media and Communication assistance to race directors, please see Crisis Communication Best Practices Guide. Or ask the USAT primary or secondary contact for USAT’s Communication Manager’s contact details.
6. Refer to the Critical Incident Response Checklist  to ensure you have followed all steps.

Send all information regarding the incident (police and/or EMS reports, photos, videos, local or regional news media coverage, etc.) as soon as possible and in any event within 48 hours to USA Triathlon (insurance@usatriathlon.org).

The best way to show support to the athlete and/or their family is to let them know you are there to help or answer any questions they might have.

• Make sure they know how to get ahold of you.
• Be timely in your responses and outreaches.

They may or may not take you up on this but making the gesture is the most important part and can help to make any future interactions go much more smoothly.  

If the athlete or their family would like information about the USA Triathlon’s Participant Accident Insurance coverage, please refer them to insurance@usatriathlon.org

If there is an athlete death, USA Triathlon will reach out to the emergency contact person and inform them of the Accidental Death Insurance Policy that is available to the family.