Gracie Bucher is an eighth grader in Windom, Minnesota who was having trouble finishing a race recently. She ended up finishing thanks to Liana Blomgren, but unfortunately Liana suffered a major penalty for being kind.
Liana Blomgren is a senior in high school in Windom, Minnesota. She is a former state qualifier from Mountain Lake High School and was close to finishing a race when she saw Gracie stumble and fall to the ground.
Before thinking about herself, Liana went to help Gracie.
“She was definitely a miracle for me,” Gracie said. “There’s nothing better than that… She was like my angel that day.”
The act of kindness took place during a state cross country meet in Luverne, Minnesota. A year before her fall, Gracie finished two places short of qualifying for the big state race.
Now that she was in it, she was determined to finish.
“I realized I was falling behind. ‘I’m not wanting this hard enough, I have to keep fighting for it,’” Gracie believed.
With the finish line in sight however, Gracie stumbled and fell face first. When she tried to get back up, she couldn’t. All her mom could do was watch in agony.
“I was told, ‘You can’t go out, you can’t go out,’ and people were screaming, ‘You can’t touch her, you can’t touch her,'” her mom said.
That’s because under the rules of the Minnesota State High School League, one runner or spectator can’t help another runner. If he/she does help another runner, he/she could get them both disqualified.
But that didn’t stop Liana from helping out.
“I knew she wasn’t going to get to the finish line by herself and I knew that she needed somebody and nobody else was there for her,” Liana says.
Liana pulled Gracie up and supported her as they crossed the finish line. Sadly however, that act of kindness got them both disqualified.
“I don’t believe there’s another sport where an athlete would be allowed on the field in that condition,” Kyle Blomgren, Liana’s dad and coach, said. “And it took an 18-year-old girl to step in and help.”
The race was Liana’s last of her high school career, but that didn’t stop her from being a good person.
“Knowing that she would do that, especially her senior year in her last race, it just means everything,” Gracie said.
Welcome to 2016, where people get punished for being good people!
[KARE 11]
