Reflection on the Boston Marathon Bombing

5 years ago today, two bombs blew up at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I was in my senior year at Boston College, which sits along mile 21 of the marathon. Like every other student, I had been watching the marathoners go by on Commonwealth Avenue all day. Like many other students, I was also a licensed EMT who volunteered with the campus first aid squad. While I wasn't technically on duty that day, when the bombing happened I suited up and reported.

Which is how I ended up in St. Ignatius Church with 400 stranded marathon runners, and several dozen volunteer EMTs trying to triage patients, provide comfort, and make sense of everything. It was something of a watershed moment for Eagle EMS, which has since been renamed BC EMS, and which still coordinates emergency medical care along mile 21. It was also a traumatic day for lots of people, myself included.

I get sad and nervous on every April 15, and in fact I've spent most of today sleeping and/or hiding in my apartment. But I will have to leave soon to make it to church, so I'm forcing myself to remember a very particular set of details.

5 Acts of Love I Witnessed on April 15, 2013

A Hair Tie
When I suited up to report for duty, I was still processing the fact that oh dear Lord there's been a terrorist attack in my city and oh dear Lord they might deploy us to Copley Square. My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely tie my boots. In the confusion, I forgot to tie my hair back, even though it was a windy day.

Within minutes of arriving outside St. Ignatius Church, my hair flying in my face had become exactly what I didn't need at that moment. So in between trying to serve cups of water to the dehydrated, panicky marathoners gathered on our lawn, I texted my roommate Sarah: "hair tie?"

20 minutes later, Sarah came charging onto the lawn in front of the church with a hair tie held out in front of her. She got my hair under control and then evaporated into the general chaos.

The cell network crashed soon after that, so it wasn't until hours later that I got her reply text: "where are you?" My hair-care fairy godmother had left our apartment, not knowing where I was, in the middle of a terrorist attack, and walked around campus until she found me.

Apples

Marathon runners don't really eat before they run a marathon, for slightly-gross reasons that I won't go into here. Everyone plans to re-hydrate and eat a big dinner after the marathon. So in the middle of everything else, we had an entire church (basement, main floor, AND choir loft) full of dehydrated people with low blood sugar. 

BC Dining services sent over all available packaged sandwiches, and within 90 minutes the Red Cross materialized with multiple bushels of apples. There were priests and chaplains on the scene who had keys to everything in the church, so we were able to fish out the collection baskets, which were the kind with long handles.

The Red Cross dumped apples into the baskets and went up and down the aisles passing fruit to everyone who was huddled in the pews. I snagged one and it was the best apple I'd ever had.

I don't even like apples.

"You're Kicking Butt"

Since we weren't in the epicenter of the situation, we weren't dealing with shrapnel wounds or blood loss. We were dealing with the aforementioned dehydration, with massively cramped-up bodies, and with psychological distress. I ushered one autistic runner into the sacristy where it was quieter and less overwhelming. I used Google Translate on my phone (and my own half-remembered high school Italian) to reassure a runner from Italy that he was safe here and we were working on a way to get everyone back to their hotels. I handed my phone over to more than one person who was desperate to get an email to their loved ones. I passed out ice packs and tried to tell people don't believe all the rumors about more bombs, nothing's been confirmed. I climbed into the pulpit and announced people's names to try to help friends and family get back together.

A few hours in, I was on the line for a ladies' room (churches never have enough bathrooms, even when it's not a mass-casualty incident), and a runner saw I was in uniform. She smiled and said, "You guys are kicking butt!"

Prayers

By the time I got back to my room, the campus ministers had rallied and organized masses for every dorm. (If you're wondering, yes, this is a very typical Catholic response. It's how we cope.) After I'd had a good cry and drank a cup of tea, I decided to pull myself together and go.

At this point we were still in the dark about who was responsible. The irresponsible Reddit speculation, the shootout, the lockdown - that was all still 3 days in the future. 

Yet at the prayers of the faithful, the priest had us pray "for whoever did this to come to understand the truth of what they've done, and turn themselves in without further violence." 

And it had been such a long time since I remembered to pray for my enemies, that I felt like a whole new person trying it.

"They Missed"

When you're training to be an EMT in the 21st Century, you have to learn protocols for responding to terrorist attacks. One thing the textbooks tell you to expect is a "secondary strike." In other words, terrorists will set off one bomb, wait for the police and EMTs to arrive, and then set off a second. For an EMT, that sounds a lot like "the terrorists are trying to kill you personally." 

That's what was in my head when I heard that there had been 2 bombs in Copley Square. That night, unable to sleep, I called my boyfriend and said, "it feels weird knowing someone was probably trying to kill me."

His response was, "Well, they missed."