Participants in one of the nationwide "Zombie Runs" in Denver Sunday suffered injuries from altercations with overenthusiastic participants and took their complaints to FOX31 Denver:
Autumn Brooks loves zombies, so when the Zombie Run came to Denver she jumped at the chance to get all dressed up in the role, only to find herself getting tackled by a runner who was trying to keep her from taking his brains…
"It was not fun at all," Brooks says. "I had a large guy tackle me over a boulder and just left me there with scrapes, bruises. I wasn’t planning on bleeding my own blood that day."
Paramedics say another zombie had her nose broken when a runner in a banana costume, of all things, elbowed or punched her in the face.
The rules of "Zombie Runs" are as follows: Human runners are outfitted with three balloons that represent their brains, and they try to reach the finish line without letting the Walking Dead get them all. Some people on both sides are getting too competitive:
"It’s supposed to be the zombie apocalypse and the runners are running to save their lives, to get to the finish to have an after party," Brooks says.
The injuries to the zombies in Denver were news to race founder Andrew Hudis, who called FOX31 Denver to respond to the complaints.
"It goes both ways. Sometimes there are humans that are too aggressive. Sometimes there are zombies that are too aggressive," Hudis says.
"Zombies are hungry and they want the brains which is the life balloon and they want to just pop as many of those as they can," Brooks explains.
She says runners got violent while fending off the living dead.
"They were just hostile, had something to prove, and were stiff-arming and taking out as many zombies as they could. They were violent to keep us from snagging them."