This picture showed up on Reddit a few days ago with the caption, “Stanford student Alicia Follmer tripped and was trampled during a race, she got up to finish in third place.” Well that is not the whole story. According to The Stanford Alumni Magazine, “Alicia was just over a lap into the first leg of the distance medley at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia when she was tripped accidentally from behind. She fell hard, and six or seven runners appeared to go straight over her.

Follmar got up quickly and regained her stride, while blood flowed down her face and neck. She had been spiked in the forehead, showed nasty abrasions up and down her right side and generally looked liked someone running in the Freddy Krueger Invitational.”

Alicia made her way from 10th to third over the next two laps before passing the baton to her teammate. Stanford finished third.

“I wouldn’t say it was as bad as it looks . . . . I can’t say it really hurt, there was so much adrenaline,” says Follmar. “There was a feeling that I had in my head—like a sensation in my head—so I felt my head with my hand and looked at it, and there was blood on it. At that point, I was already running. I kind of panicked, but I still kept running.” One lap of merely running, then two laps of courage.”

It all comes down to a choice, to set there and bleed or GET BACK UP and bleed!