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Remembered children inspire run
Event raises money toward research and serves as memorial
By Barbara Hernandez
bhernan5@mscd.edu

Photo by Heather A. Longway-Burke • longway@mscd.edu Lunden MacDonald, assistant professor of Spanish in the modern language department at Metro (left), mother of Gus, and Tami Gove, mother of Josh, with her son J.J., 2, at the 3rd annual Josh & Gus’s Run For A Reason held on Sept. 23 at Clement Park in Littleton.

The third annual Josh and Gus’s Run for a Reason, held Sept. 23 at Clement Park in Littleton, was co-directed by a mother and Metro professor who lost her son to a tragic, mysterious phenomenon.

Professor of Spanish Lunden MacDonald lost her first son, Gus, in 2003 to Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood.

SUDC is related to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the only difference between the two being that SUDC takes the lives of children older than 12 months.

Josh Gove died three months before Gus Macdonald, also of SUDC.

Josh and Gus’s Run for a Reason was founded three years ago by the MacDonald and Gove families to raise awareness of SUDC and fund research to look into the problem.

“Three years ago no one in Colorado knew about SUDC,” MacDonald said.

However, she plans to change that with Josh and Gus’s Run for a Reason.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter kicked off the run, and every SUDC family in Colorado participated, MacDonald said.

According to the SUDC program official website, “From 1979 to 2001 there were 7,916 deaths nationally with unknown and unspecified causes for children between ages 1 and 14.”

The numbers are misleading, MacDonald said, because coroners are required to list a deceased person’s cause of death.

In Gus’ case, coroners first classified his death as pneumonia.

“There is no way to know how many children died of SUDC,” MacDonald said. “That is frustrating in terms of the research. If people saw the percentage was way higher, they would say we need to do something. It is not (considered) worthy of investigation and money. That’s why there is not government funding. That’s why parents have to get the money.”

In each of the first two years of the event, it raised over $60,000 and drew over 1,000 participants.

About 1,100 people attended this year’s event, and for the third time they raised over $60,000.

“We send the money to research because we want to know what happened to our babies,” MacDonald said. “Gus taught us so much about the world. He was an impressive teacher for being so little. He was perfectly healthy. Most of the time parents are worried about broken arms. You don’t expect to find them dead.”

MacDonald said she hopes that the future will bring preventive measures for SUDC as well as a Colorado support group for parents.

The day Gus died, MacDonald and her husband, Patrick, were separated from each other because of police procedures involving the death of a child.

“The day itself was difficult and sad,” MacDonald said. “Police came and did an entire investigation to make sure it wasn’t child abuse.”

She said she and her husband felt accused of murder.

“We got out of that. We moved on to dealing with the coroners and asking a million questions ... like if he suffered,” MacDonald said. “The horrible thing is, you never get answers.”

Coroners classified pneumonia as the cause of death because no other reason was found.
However, the MacDonalds never stopped searching for real answers.

They eventually found Dr. Henry Krous of Children’s Hospital in San Diego, director of the San Diego SUDC Project.

He agreed to perform an autopsy on their son and classified Gus’ death as SUDC.

“SUDC is not a disease,” MacDonald said. “It is a classification of death when there is no physical evidence after a complete death scene investigation and post-mortem examination.”

“The worst thing is you don’t want to forget about your child,” MacDonald said. “The best thing is that the race allows us to honor and remember our children.”