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Ten years later
By adamg on Sat, 04/15/2023 - 12:54pm
Destroyed sneaker on Boylston Street after the explosions. Photo by Brian D'Amico.
Martin Richard, 8. Krystle Campbell, 29. Lingzi Lu, 23. Sean Collier, 27. Dennis Simmonds, 28. Their names and ages are forever frozen in place by the events the week of April 15, 2013. Scores more will remember April 15, 2013 because of the injuries they suffered. And, of course, the rest of us will not forget, either. Ten years after the Tsarnaev brothers brought death and destruction to a peaceful race on a beautiful spring day, what can we take from that week? A roundup of thoughts and interviews:
- Martin's Park.
- Sean Collier Memorial
- One Boston Day
- WHDH: Boston Marathon bombing survivor shares story of resilience
- WBUR: These Boston Marathon medical volunteers responded to the bombings - then healed each other
- WBUR: Group of Boston Marathon bombings survivors help others reeling from tragedy
- NBC Boston: Boston Marathon Bombing Survivor Heather Abbott Is Changing the Lives of Other Amputees
- Northeastern Global News: Injured in the Boston Marathon bombing, Northeastern student Victoria McGrath became an inspiration to all. 10 years later, friends and family keep her memory alive
- Northeastern Global News: 'Cherish every day like it’s your last.' Standing a few feet away from the second Boston Marathon bomb, Audrey Evans feels lucky to be alive
- Harvard Gazette: 'Governor, I don't know what’s going on, but there are body parts all over the street' - Deval Patrick, Juliette Kayem remember
- Harvard Gazette: Scars remain a decade later
- FBI: FBI Boston marks 10-year-anniversary by honoring victims, recalling responders’ heroic efforts
- Beacon Hill Times: The Marathon Bombing,10 Years Later
- Universal Hub: Explosions, deaths on Boylston Street - Universal Hub's initial report.
- All Universal Hub bombing coverage (in reverse chronological order, to start from the beginning, click here, then follow the back links at the bottom of the page).
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Comments
There's been some good journalism in the past week
The Globe's article on the person who Reddit had falsely identified as suspect was depressing. I didn't know (or remember) that person they accused was already missing and was mostly known because his family and friends were desperately searching for him at the time of the marathon.
On the day of the bombing, 2023 seemed like an eternity away. Looking back, the bombing feels like it happened only a year ago.
There were actually two kids who were misidentified
The poor kid found dead and some kid from, Revere, maybe, who was walking around before the race with a backpack (by the New York Post).
For what it's worth, this was national Reddit. The Boston subreddit was mostly a place for locals to gather and try to process it all - and to help pay for pizzas that were delivered to the cops guarding Copley Square and emergency rooms.
Was in Longwood Medical Area that day
I worked in an office in the LMA. The first we knew of it was hearing the multitude of sirens, which went on non-stop for ages. I'd been in NYC on 9/11 and it brought me back to then and revived my PTSD. Of course, as reports started coming in we all worried about people we knew who ran the Marathon. Since then, I've had to stop going to the office on that Patriots Day because my anxiety levels go through the roof by afternoon and I freak out every time I hear a siren.
Besides all the obvious reasons for being upset and angry, I hate that this took away the joy I used to take in this uniquely Massachusetts holiday. Not just the Marathon, but all the reenactments (when married, I lived in a town with a Minuteman troop) and general cheer.
I am sorry to hear that these
I am sorry to hear that these traumas still affect you, though it is not surprising that they would. If I may make a suggestion as a psychotherapist, there is a very effective treatment for PTSD called EMDR that may help you lessen or possibly get rid of these reactions. I use it with clients frequently with very good results. You can learn more at emdria.org.
Thanks, but not needed
@Brent - thanks, but it's very rare that I'm affected by these traumas nowadays. At this point, it's enough just to not go to the LMA on Marathon Monday (and since I've been working from home for the last 3 years that's not a problem.)
I grew up in NYC across the street from a hospital, a couple of blocks from a fire station. In college I lived across the street from the abandoned church by the Mass Ave bridge that burned down and didn't notice the sirens until the person I was on the phone with asked about them, at which point I went downstairs and found a ton of fire trucks and the whole neighborhood crowding the street! For weeks after 9/11 and after the Marathon bombing I reacted every time I heard a siren (and I live down the street from a fire station), but that abated and I'm fine except this one day each year.
10 years
I was standing on Clarendon between Boylston and Newbury and the first bomb went off. There was a crane on Exeter Street near the hotel I worked at and I assumed it was some kind of accident from that. I kept walking up Newbury trying to get to work and suddenly the second bomb and a stampede came at me. I had to go backwards break through the marathon runners up Columbus Avenue through the back of Back Bay station as the neighborhood was shut down and just made it to the hotel. We were staging ground for the BPD and eventually the New York Times. Some of my Valet‘s working at the lenox had to return limbs to the police. Driving out of the city that night around 11 was one of the most surreal experiences I hope to have in my life. I could go on forever… I fulfilled a life dream, watching my hand waving through the window live on CNN.
I think you missed
Dennis Simmonds.
If you mention Collier, Simmonds should be mentioned as well.
Agreed
Simmonds was murdered by the Tsarnaev brothers, it just took a year for the physical injury they inflicted upon him in Watertown to kill him. He died of injuries sustained in the line of duty.
From the Globe this week (scroll down a bit for the segment on Simmonds: https://apps.bostonglobe.com/metro/2023/04/boston-marathon-bombing-10-ye...
MIT should do more and put
MIT should do more and put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the Collier Awards.
I remember your coverage of this day, Adam
I was with my then-boyfriend, whose sister had crossed the finish line about 10 minutes before the bombs. We were heading down Newbury toward Park Street when we heard/felt the blasts. Uhub was the only source of any information. Even 30-60 minutes later, the NYT was still patting itself on the back about winning a Pulitzer and you were furiously tweeting updates and then resources. You did incredible work that day.
Aw, thanks
I'm glad I could do one small part to help keep people informed (starting with one poorly written tweet), but something I obviously hope never happens again.
I wish I'd found UHub by then
I'm so glad to have found you since then.
I was 3000 miles away
And the first place I turned to and sent people to? UHub.
I am so thankful that one of my sons was in Italy on an April Vacation school trip, the other with me and my husband in San Francisco, where I was working a conference. My son's besties saw stuff that day that nobody should ever see and he would have been with them. As it was he was up all night supporting them, being their rock and beacon until they all crashed, and then he cried himself to sleep - Krystle was one of his high school "buddies" in preschool.
The next day SFO was rocking decades of BAA jackets. Anyone who ever ran dug theirs out and wore it in solidarity. The Dropkicks were playing locally, but were long sold out.
Justice delayed
The court system is still debating the perpetrator's sentence. In some ways that's the most maddening part of the story.
Yes, but ...
The issue is whether he spend the rest of his life in a tiny cell (for 23 hours a day) in a supermax prison or whether he be executed.
But what is maddening about it?
To do anything but afford him the fullest of due process would be abandoning our values and that is the desired outcome of terrorists like him. We are better than that, and we are better than him. Let’s not destroy ourselves in pursuit of revenge or retribution.
Personally, I hope he has a long, monotonous life where he is afforded the basic essentials of life in a meager prison cell and can reflect every single day on the choices he made to cause harm to other people and the consequences that he brought upon himself. I do not wish him well, but I also do not wish him harm, though at times I’m sure I have felt that wish.
He's not going anywhere
You are confusing justice with retribution.
It really doesn't matter anyway - the goal of ensuring public safety is met regardless of these deliberations. He is never going to be released.