Marathon runner Jeff Koll was on a mission trip in Liberia when he contracted malaria. Doctors say his training made his heart strong enough to save his life, and now he’s using this second chance to help others.
Jeff Koll considers himself an accidental runner. He didn’t mean to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but he did. He also didn’t mean to get malaria, but he did. Koll’s running career – though he probably wouldn’t call it that – has revolved around fellowship. The Iowa native moved to South Carolina 25 years ago to work for Colonial Life, and that’s where he was invited to start running with the organization’s corporate track team. “I made a lot of good friends and started doing some local races,” says Koll, who had no aspirations to train for something as big as a marathon. “We ran some 5K and 10K races, and then they talked me into running a half marathon.”
Over the next several years, Koll continued running but he also began playing golf and tennis. Then he hurt his knee. Koll was told he could go all-out in using forward motion, but that it was best to avoid side-to-side movements. “I thought about it for three seconds and decided to quit tennis,” he says. “I got back into running but almost quit in 2018 because of the pain when I tried to run longer distances. I realized I had been training wrong and began training the right way.”
Koll decided he would compete in one fast and flat marathon, and then never do another. He ran in the Myrtle Beach Marathon in 2022 – “accidentally” qualifying for the Boston Marathon, which he had no intention of running. His friends from his small group at his church, Mount Horeb in Lexington, had other ideas though. They invited him to join their Ville to Ville Relay team to run 75 miles from the peaks to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (Asheville, NC to Greenville, SC). Along the way, they kept up a steady stream of encouragement to run in the Boston Marathon.
Koll began training, even competing in The RunDisney Dopey Challenge, where he participated in a grueling four days of back-to-back races (each starting at 5:30 am), including a 5K, 10K, half marathon, and then a full marathon. This was in early 2023. A few weeks later, he would leave for Liberia on a mission trip with his church.
A veteran of mission trips – he’s previously traveled to Alaska, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic – Koll was no stranger to the preparations required for these types of adventures. At the recommendation of Passport Health, he began taking malaria and typhoid fever medications to prevent contracting these infectious diseases. However, due to some negative side effects, the strict timelines for taking the medicines, and the fact that they were going to a low-risk area, Koll and his physician agreed he would not complete the full course of malaria medications.
The trip went as planned. The group provided a medical clinic, offered teaching/education, and helped build houses. Koll continued training for the Boston Marathon. “Twice, I separated myself from the group by getting up early to run on my own, and I think that may have been when it happened,” Koll says.
After returning to the United States, Koll had some congestion. He felt better for several days and then he began having stomach pains and body aches/shivers. After some trial and error at urgent care and being sent between hospitals, Koll was finally diagnosed with malaria. That was when he lost consciousness. For ten days.
“I have a vague memory of my daughter and dad visiting, but I thought it was a dream,” Koll says of the foggy state he endured while they waited for the right medications to arrive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and then waited some more for the treatment to work. “When I fully woke up, it was dark and late. My arms were strapped to the bed, and I had tubes in my mouth and nose.”
Koll tried to move around but felt intense pain in his abdomen. What he didn’t realize was that over the past week-and-a-half, his organs had failed one by one. His lungs, kidneys – nearly everything but his heart. “The doctors told my wife that they didn’t know why I was alive,” Koll says. “She told them I had been training for a marathon, and they said that must be the reason.”
Koll would soon find another reason for his survival. Meanwhile, the pain was so severe that he thought it was time to die. He remembers the sun shining in through the window and a palpable energy in the air. “I thought, ‘This is God here to take me away. I’ve had a great life, this pain is killing me, and I’m ready to go,’” Koll says. “But then I heard God’s answer, and it was ‘no’.”
Koll says his pain left him at that point, and it didn’t return. But he had other challenges. Among its effects, the malaria had taken Koll’s ability to walk and 30 pounds off his already trim frame. He had a long road ahead of him to recovery. His path began when his wife shared the outpouring of prayers and well wishes from his church and local community. A humbling experience, he says. Walking those first 10 feet to the door of his room was incredibly difficult, but each day he walked to it and back.
“The look back at the bed reminded me of my moment with God,” he says. “I knew I needed to do something with this second chance, so I pushed myself to go farther each day. I wasn’t in a position to help anyone in my condition, so that was my motivation.”
Koll couldn’t believe that merely a month earlier he had run nearly 50 miles in the Disney race, and now he struggled to walk around the intensive care unit. So, he walked 10 times around it. He made progress every day, and after a month of hospitalization and rehab, he went home – continuing kidney dialysis on an outpatient basis for a few more weeks.
Seven months later, Koll is back to running 40 miles per week and has competed in a half marathon. He’s also begun speaking with groups about his story. It began with breakfast with a friend and accountability partner, Paul Curlee, who asked Koll to speak to his work group about perseverance. He’ll provide a similar talk for his workplace, and Koll and his wife have been interviewed by their church about their experience as well as their continuing commitment to mission work, which Koll hopes to get back to soon.
Whether on mission trips or when counseling others, Koll uses his second chance to help others. He asks what they are passionate about and the biggest challenges they’ve overcome. “Every time I ask these questions, I learn something valuable about them and about life,” says Koll, who now has his own story of triumph to share. “I also encourage them to consider helping others who are at the beginning of that journey as well. I really and truly believe that if everyone tried to help someone else, we could make this world a much better place.”