Wetzel, 32, is executive pastry chef at Gertrudeās restaurant in the Baltimore Museum of Art. Heās a clever, creative and congenial fellow. Going into the Rock Hall International Triathlon he consider himself to be in good shape. He had completed the Druid Hill Sprint Triathlon in August 2014. Rock Hall represented his first attempt at a longer Olympic triathlon.
Wetzel was unconscious when he arrived at University of Maryland Shore Medical Center in Chestertown. Clinicians ran tests and gave him fluid and antibiotics intravenously. By the time he was medevaced to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, his muscles were breaking down and his kidneys were shutting down. Dr. Thomas Scalea, physician-in-chief at the shock trauma center, did not think Wetzel would survive.