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A Normally Festive Scene Is Turned Into One of Carnage and Chaos The War Zone at Mile 26: ‘There Are So Many People Without Legs’
(35 minutes later)
BOSTON — Roupen Bastajian, a state trooper from Rhode Island, was receiving his finisher’s medal after completing the Boston Marathon when he heard an explosion behind him. He thought it was a cannon, something ceremonial. He turned and saw the second blast, and ran toward the white smoke, hoping to help anyone he could. BOSTON — About 26.19 miles into the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon, explosions shook the street and sent runners frantically racing for cover. The marathon finish line, normally a festive zone of celebration and exhaustion, was suddenly like a war zone.
“I ran over there and there were at least 40 people that I saw on the ground, some without legs,” said Mr. Bastajian, 35. “It’s bad, it’s bad.” “These runners just finished and they don’t have legs now,” said Roupen Bastajian, 35, a Rhode Island state trooper and a former Marine. “So many of them. There are so many people without legs. It’s all blood. There’s blood everywhere. You got bones, fragments. It’s disgusting.”
“These runners just finished and they don’t have legs now,” he said. “So many of them. There are so many people without legs. It’s all blood. There’s blood everywhere. You got bones, fragments. It’s disgusting. It’s like a war zone.” Had Mr. Bastajian run a few strides slower, as he did in 2011, he might have been among the dozens of victims injured in Monday’s bomb blasts. Instead, he was among the runners treating other runners, a makeshift emergency medical service of exhausted athletes.
Mr. Bastajian, who was a sergeant in the Marines for four years, had finished in 4 hours 2 minutes 42 seconds at 2:43 p.m., about 7 minutes before the first blast. If he had been a few strides slower, he might have been among the dozens of victims Monday when bombs exploded at the marathon. Instead, he was among the runners treating other runners, a makeshift emergency medical service of exhausted athletes. “We put tourniquets on,” Mr. Bastajian said. “I tied at least five, six legs with tourniquets.”
“We put tourniquets on,” Mr. Bastajian said. “I tied at least five, six legs with tourniquets. It’s horrible.” The timing of the explosions — just over four hours from the official start — was especially devastating because they happened when a high concentration of runners in the main field were arriving at the finish line.
Bruce Mendelsohn, a public relations professional, was at a celebration on a third-floor office above where the explosion took place. His brother, Aaron, had finished the race earlier. In last year’s Boston Marathon, for example, more than 9,100 crossed the finish line — 42 percent of all finishers — in the 30 minutes before and after the time of the explosions.
“There was a very loud boom, and three to five second later, there was another one,” said Mr. Mendelsohn, 44, an Army veteran, who immediately recognized the noise because of his training. “I ran outside. There was blood smeared in the streets and on the sidewalk.” Deirdre Hatfield, 27, was steps away from the finish line when she heard a blast. She saw bodies flying out into the street. She saw a couple of children who appeared lifeless. She saw people without legs.
He said that on first glance, there appeared to be 10 to 12 fatalities, including “women, children, finishers,” but that he could not be sure. The wounds, he said, appeared to be “lower torso.” “When the bodies landed around me I thought, Am I burning? Maybe I’m burning and I don’t feel it,” she said. “If I blow up, I just hope I won’t feel it.”
“The type of stuff,” he said, “you see from someone exploding out.” She looked inside the Starbucks to her left, which seemed to be where the blast occurred. “What was so eerie, you looked in you knew there had to be 100 people in there, but there was no sign of movement,” she said.
Mr. Mendelsohn, who went to try to help members of law enforcement cordon off the area, said it appeared that the explosion came from a cafe near 667 Boylston Street, near the finish line. Ms. Hatfield quickly realized that the blasts were part of some sort of attack. She began trying to think where the next explosion might occur. Finally, she turned down a side street and ran to the hotel where she agreed to meet her boyfriend and family after the race.
“This appeared to be deliberately at a time when people were finishing,” said Mr. Mendelsohn, who said he served in South Korea and Germany. Amid the chaos, the authorities directed runners and onlookers to the area designated for family members awaiting loved ones at the end of the race. It was traditionally a place of panting pride, sweaty hugs and exhausted relief.
People immediately tried to evacuate the area. “Everyone is heading over the Mass Ave bridge,” he said, calling it a “mass exodus.” But on Monday, it transformed into a place of dread, as news of the attack spread through the crowd and people awaited word. One woman screamed over the din toward the streets roped off for runners: “Lisa! Lisa!”
Like many of the people in and around Boston, Mr. Mendelsohn snapped photos from above the explosion and shared them on Twitter. One photo he posted showed what appeared to be blood on the streets. Some people saw the explosions as clouds of white smoke. To others, they looked orange — a fireball that nearly reached the top of a nearby traffic light.
Ricky Simms, the agent for Micah Kogo, who finished second among elite men, said the elite runners had all sat down for a meal when they heard the noise. Groups of runners, including a row of women in pink and neon tank tops and a man in a red windbreaker — kept going a few paces at least, as if unsure of what they were seeing.
“We were in the dining room,” Mr. Simms said. “We just heard two noises and people were saying: ‘Oh, is it thunder? Was it some accident? Did a window fall out of a building?’ Nobody thought it could be an explosion.” Some runners stopped in the middle of the street, confused and frightened. Others turned around and started running back the way they came — only faster this time.
Dave Watt, executive director of the American Running Association, said he was standing in the middle of the street, facing the finish line from beyond it, taking photos of runners when the first blast went off. A medical tent was nearby. “It is kind of ironic that you just finished running a marathon and you want to keep running away,” said Sarah Joyce, 21, who had just finished her first marathon when she heard the blast.
Within 30 seconds of the explosion, doctors and assistants were running toward the scene, he said. Bruce Mendelsohn, 44, was at a party in a third-floor office above where the finish line the bombs went off. His brother, Aaron, had finished the race earlier.
“Thank God this medical tent is here where this happened,” Mr. Watt said. “It could have been much worse. Because you had doctors racing down there, putting people in wheelchairs and bringing them back, within two or three minutes of the explosion.” “There was a very loud boom, and three to five second later, there was another one,” said Mr. Mendelsohn, an Army veteran who now works in public relations. He ran outside. “There was blood smeared in the streets and on the sidewalk,” he said.
Mr. Mendelsohn could not be sure how many people had been killed or injured, but among the bodies he said he saw women, children and runners. The wounds, he said, appeared to be “lower torso.”
As Melissa Fryback, 42, was heading into the home stretch, she realized she was on pace for one of her best times ever. She steeled herself for the last three miles and finished in 3 hours 44 minutes. She met up with her boyfriend, and the two had made it about two blocks from the finish line when they heard the blasts.
“I can’t help but wonder that if I hadn’t pushed like that, it could have been me,” she said. “I can’t put myself back together.”

Reporting was contributed by John Eligon and Mary Pilon in Boston, and Steve Eder and Andrew W. Lehren in New York.