Last week, Loranne Ausley announced she’s running for Tallahassee Mayor. Ten months ago, after a bike accident that left her critically injured, it was questionable whether she’d be able to run again, period.
On Nov. 2, 2024, Ausley was participating in her seventh IRONMAN triathlon in Panama City when she fell off her bike and suffered a traumatic brain injury and broken bones that left her in a coma with a questionable prognosis.
Here’s how she explains what happened:
“I had qualified for and done the Women’s World Championship IRONMAN in Nice, France[1], in September, and I was trained, and I just decided I was going to do one more in Panama City because it’s so close.”
She had completed the 2.4-mile swim of the IRONMAN Florida Triathlon[2] and moved on to the 120-mile bike ride when her fateful accident occurred.
“I got on a bike, I rode, and I don’t know what happened,” she continued. “I didn’t hit another bike, and nobody hit me. I went down over the handlebar somehow and hit my head. … Spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and I was in a coma for three weeks at the hospital in Panama City. I have no memory of that.”
After a recovery that’s nothing short of miraculous, Ausley says now, “I really feel like I’m back to normal.”
“For a long time, I would get really tired at the end of the day, and I’m still working with a speech therapist. … It used to be I couldn’t remember … the words for things,” she continued.
She jumped into the 2026 Election to replace Mayor John Dailey after he decided not to seek re-election. Two other candidates are currently also running: sitting Commissioner Jeremy Matlow and local civil rights attorney Daryl Parks, who filed on Sept. 18.
The nonpartisan race is of particular importance because whoever wins could tip the balance in favor of one of the two competing factions on the current Commission.
Ausley is not picking sides.
“I don’t want to say anything about the City Commission,” she told WFSU when the news of her candidacy broke. “What I want to say is that there’s so much great going on in the city of Tallahassee, but there’s so much more that can be done. And I would like to see us finding the things that we have in common versus focusing on things that we don’t have in common. To me, that’s what moving the city forward is really about.”
She said her medical team has given her the go-ahead to campaign. While she won’t be returning to biking, swimming and running are still in the mix. Four months after the accident, she ran a 10K as part of the region’s premier community event, Springtime Tallahassee.
“I remember when I was in the Legislature, they would always ask me to come to the parade and be part of the reviewing stand,” Ausley, who has been running for 25 years, recalled, “and I’m like, ‘No, because I’m going to run the race. I’ll have some nasty clothes on.’”
Ausley served as Representative for HD 9 for 16 years, then was elected to SD 13 in 2020. Following redistricting and an ever redder Florida, she lost her seat to Republican Sen. Corey Simon in 2022.
Ausley continues to advocate for children and the disabled, and she won’t ignore her physical struggles during the campaign. In fact, she wants to share her story in the hope of educating others about the challenges she and others face.
“For a long time, I would start out by saying, ‘I have a brain injury.’ My husband said, ‘You gotta stop telling people you have a brain injury because you’re really fine. That is not what you should lead with,’” she says. “But … everybody knows that I went through this, and I want to make sure people understand this is not an uncommon thing.”
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References
- ^ Women’s World Championship IRONMAN in Nice, France (www.ironman.com)
- ^ IRONMAN Florida Triathlon (www.ironman.com)