A UF physics professor died in a hospital Monday morning from cardiac arrest, police said.
At about 8 a.m. Monday, Steven Detweiler, 68, was found inside a bathroom near Southwest Recreation Center, University Police spokesman Officer Wayne Clark said.
A maintenance worker with UF RecSports found Detweiler in the bathroom, wearing a GPS watch and workout clothes, Clark said. Police arrived shortly after.
After looking at the data on Detweiler’s watch, UPD detectives said he likely parked his car at the commuter lot on Gale Lemerand Drive before running about two and a half miles to Maguire Field, Clark said. Officers performed CPR on Detweiler and then used a defibrillator, but Detweiler was unresponsive.
Police provided emergency care until Gainesville Fire Rescue arrived and drove him about three miles to the North Florida Regional Medical Center, Clark said. He was pronounced dead at 8:40 a.m., Clark said.
On his faculty page, Detweiler is listed as a professor in UF’s Institute for Fundamental Theory and UF’s Physics Department. He received his associate bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago.
As a researcher, he is credited with helping author about 100 academic studies, according to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/NASA Astrophysics Data System.
Detweiler competed in about 60 races and logged more than 500 miles as a runner, according to athlinks.com.
In 2015, at the age of 67, he finished the Boston Marathon in about three hours and 43 minutes, according to the Boston Athletic Association.
Contact Martin Vassolo at mvassolo@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @martindvassolo.
