Two days after the Boston Marathon bombings, the facts are being pieced together. Men, women and children are conting their losses
An eight-year-old boy waiting at the finish line to give his father a hug was among three people killed and more than 152 injured when two explosions rocked the Boston Marathon in the worst terrorist atrocity since 9/11.
Martin Richard died after bombs hidden in trash cans were detonated within 12 seconds of each other during the Patriots’ Day bank holiday on Monday, sending terrified runners and spectators fleeing for their lives and leaving a scene of ‘unspeakable horror’.
A second victim, Krystel Campell, who was there to cheer up her boyfriend to success, was identified yesterday.
Her father was earlier told she was alive by doctors who mistook her for her friend. The 29-year-old was always attending the marathon.
Boston police closed off the city as a ‘danger zone’ as witnesses described seeing body parts flying through the air and shoes that ‘still had flesh in them’ in an attack that has sent shockwaves across the world.
Seventeen of the injured are in a critical condition and CNN reported that at least 10 victims have needed amputations.
At least eight of the wounded are thought to be children, including a two-year-old boy who suffered a head injury.
Another was 11-year-old Aaron Hern, of Martinez, California, who was hit by flying shrapnel in his thigh as he waited for his mother to cross the finish line. He is being treated at Boston Children’s Hospital and is expected to undergo further surgeries.
Yesterday, as the United States remained on full alert, President Barack Obama vowed to hunt down the culprits and ‘hold them accountable’.
Investigators do not know of a motive for the bombers, nor do they have a specific suspect. But last night detectives raided a Boston home after a man, said to be of Saudi origin, was arrested at the scene for acting suspiciously and taken to hospital, where he was treated for burns and shrapnel wounds.
Startling video footage showed an explosion going off in the heart of the crowd that had lined the streets of the Massachusetts city yesterday to watch the famous sporting event.
After the twin detonations ripped through the cheering crowds, one witness told CNN that it ‘felt like a huge cannon’ and other described horrifying scenes of screaming spectators, missing limbs and unresponsive bodies.
‘In 28 years, this is definitely the worst I’ve seen,’ said District Fire Chief Ron Harrington of the Boston Fire Department’s District 3 to NBC News.
‘Bodies and body parts. Blood all over. A little boy lying in the street. A young woman in her twenties. Both dead. It was mayhem. I saw two people with arms hanging loose, and one without a leg. A shoe with flesh still in it.’
According to the Boston Globe, Martin Richard, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, may very nearly have cheated death after walking out to embrace his father Bill Richard as he went to cross the finishing line.
But when Mr Richard walked on, the youngster turned back to rejoin his mother and two of his siblings just as the first bomb exploded.
His six-year-old sister lost a leg in the blast and his mother Denise is in hospital after undergoing brain surgery. Martin’s older brother, believed to be in the fifth grade, escaped injury.
According to 7News, a candle was lit outside the family home and the word ‘Peace’ written on the pavement.
Mr Richard is understood to be a popular community leader in the Boston suburb. Martin was a keen baseball player and was a member of Savin Hill Little League team. On Twitter, Maeve O Brien called him ‘the sweetest little boy I’ve ever met.’
As the FBI took over the investigation, authorities shared no information about a motive or who may have carried out the bombings, and police said they did not have any suspects in custody.
Officials said there was no immediate claim of responsibility, while an official told CNN that there was no surveillance footage of the bombs being planted.
But on Monday night, 20 police and federal officials, including members of the bomb squad raided a Boston area apartment.
A source confirmed that a large police presence at a home in Revere was related to the Boston Marathon bombings. Marcus Worthington, 24, a resident in the building said no one from the police or FBI has told him what is happening.
Boston Police Crime Scene Response unit arrived and two members of that unit took several brown paper bags, normally used to store evidence taken from the scene, into the building and left with them full afterwards.
On Monday, the FBI, announced that they were searching for a man they described as having dark skin, wearing black clothes and a black back-pack who tried to gain entry into a restricted area during the marathon.
It was also reported that he may have had a foreign accent.
The raid came after a Saudi national, who is being treated for burns and shrapnel wounds at hospital, was arrested at the scene.
He had been tackled by a civilian who believed he was acting suspiciously, and he was being interviewed by the FBI. He was being cooperative and denying any involvement.
Initially counter-terrorism sources in the city believed that seven devices were planted across the city – but only two detonated.
A senior U.S. intelligence official told the Associated Press that as many as two unexploded bombs were also found near the end of the course as part of what appeared to be a well-coordinated attack, but they were safely disarmed.
A law-enforcement official said late on Monday evening that investigators believe other packages were simply left behind as runners and pedestrians rushed away from the scene in the aftermath of the blasts.
A federal law enforcement official told CNN that both bombs which detonated at the Boston finish line were small, and initial tests showed no C-4 or other high-grade explosive was used – indicating they were crude devices.
At an evening briefing, officials said the National Guard had cordoned off the area to preserve evidence.
“I am not prepared to say we are at ease at this point in time,” sad Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis according to NBC News.
Boston police initially issued an alert for a rental van that may have sought access to the marathon route, and then another alert for a man wearing dark clothing and a hood who was seen leaving the scene of the blasts.
The two bombs raised the spectre that terrorism has struck again in the U.S.
In Washington, President Barack Obama vowed during an address to the nation just after 6 p.m. on Monday that, “any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice.”
Boston “is a tough and resilient town,” he said, adding that Americans will stand by Bostonians “every single step of the way.”
After the twin detonations ripped through the cheering crowds, witnesses described the horror.
The fiery twin blasts took place about 12 seconds and about 100 yards apart, knocking spectators and at least one runner off their feet, shattering windows and sending dense plumes of smoke rising over the street and through the fluttering national flags lining the route.
Blood stained the pavement, and huge shards were missing from window panes as high as three stories.
The explosions ripped into an idyllic afternoon finish for the marathon. The first men had passed the finish line 2 hours and 10 minutes after the staggered start, and the first women crossed just 16 minutes later.
The first blast sent a quick plume of smoke two stories high. Runners nearby stopped in their tracks, confused and unsure. After a few seconds later, a second explosion happened a half-block away, with a deep boom caught on television cameras.
Emergency personnel rushed to the area, and the street was quickly sealed off.
“I saw it go off and smoke billowed up. Everyone just stopped and hunched down,” said Pam Ledtke, 51, from Indianapolis, who was about 75 yards from the finish line when the explosions went off. ‘They didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden, people were screaming.’
One doctor, Allan Panter, stood near to the finish line said he was 25-feet away from the first blast when it detonated.
‘I saw at least six to seven people down next to me,’ he said. ‘They protected me from the blast. One lady expired. One gentleman lost both his (lower) limbs. Most of the injuries were lower extremities.’
Nickilynn Estologa, a nursing student who was volunteering in a block-long medical tent designed to treat fatigued runners, said five to six victims immediately staggered inside. Several were children; one was in his 60s.
“Some were bleeding from the head, they had glass shards in their skin,” she said.
“One person had the flesh gone from his leg; it was just hanging there.” Another woman, she added, was lying on a gurney as emergency personnel raced through the tent, giving her CPR.
“I just can’t believe anyone would do something like this,’ Estologa said.
“I saw two explosions,” reported Boston Herald journalist Chris Cassidy, who was running in the marathon. “The first one was beyond the finish line. I heard a loud bang and I saw smoke rising.”
Veteran marathon runner Bill Iffrig, 78, was almost at the finish when ‘the shock waves just hit my whole body and my legs just started jittering around.’
Medical officials have said that at least 10 injured people had limbs amputated and several of the patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital suffered injuries to lower limbs that will require ‘serial operations’ in the coming days, trauma surgeon Peter Fagenholz said on Monday night to CNN.
Dr Ron Walls, chair of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told ABC News that he had not identified any shrapnel, such as ball bearings, but saw a lot of ‘street stuff’ that had injured their patients.
“Rocks, bits of metal, soda cans, anything that is really close to a blast like that can be fragmented,” he said. “Everything we saw was ordinary material that could have been propelled by the device.”
Boston Children’s Hospital received eight patients injured at the explosion at the Boston Marathon. Patients’ conditions ranged from good to serious. There were no patient deaths among the patients brought to Boston Children’s from the scene.
Their patients included a 2-year-old-boy with a head injury who has been admitted to the Medical/Surgical ICU, a a 9-year-old girl with leg trauma who was sent to the operating room and a 12-year-old boy with a femur fracture. The condition of these children currently is not known.
