Canton eyewitnesses reflect on marathon attack

What started out as a day of celebration and joy quickly turned to horror on the streets of Boston as two powerful bombs, reportedly made out of pressure cookers and laced with nails, ball bearings and other types of shrapnel, exploded in quick succession near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three and injuring more than 170 others.

Marathoner Jenn Seich, a 2002 CHS graduate

The makeshift devices, now believed to have been concealed in black duffel bags and placed on the north side of Boylston Street about 75-100 yards apart, detonated within seconds of each other shortly before 3 p.m., unleashing a bloody and chaotic scene that sent thousands of terrified spectators fleeing in all directions.

In Canton, as in communities across Massachusetts and across the country, people remained glued to their television sets, watching with a mix of anger and disbelief as the events unfolded in real time, while hundreds took to Facebook or Twitter to express their outrage or to offer up condolences to the victims and their families.

Several Canton residents also took part in Monday’s race, either as runners or as spectators, including at least a few who witnessed the carnage firsthand.

Among them was Lauren Seich, a 2004 Canton High School graduate who had driven up from New York City to cheer on her big sister, Jenn, who was running in her first Boston Marathon.

Lauren and her mother, Amy, had been lucky enough to receive VIP passes and were sitting in the bleacher seats next to the finish line, holding up their phones in anticipation for Jenn’s impending arrival, when the first of the two blasts went off directly across the street from them.

“We heard the noise and I didn’t know what it was,” recalled Lauren in a telephone interview Monday night. “It’s not a noise you typically hear every day. Probably what I remember the most is that it was just so loud.”

Lauren said they immediately dropped under the bleachers to take cover, still not quite sure what had happened, when suddenly they heard the second bomb go off a few blocks away.

“That’s when I kind of realized it was a bomb,” she said. “At that point everybody ran, as we didn’t know if there was going to be more.”

Prior to running, however, during those few brief moments after the initial blast went off, Lauren and her mom witnessed a gruesome scene.

“We pretty much saw everything,” she said. “Many people lying on the ground, blood stains all over the sidewalk. We saw police at that location and all of the workers running over trying to get to those people. It was just so much chaos and so much drama and people everywhere just screaming.”

Once they had made it far enough away from the site of the attacks, Lauren said her thoughts turned to finding her sister, who, according to the tracker she had on her phone, was about two minutes away from the finish line.

Jenn, as it turned out, was part of the group of 4,500 runners who didn’t get to complete the marathon. She was on Hereford Street, less than a mile away, when she felt a “huge boom.” She then turned onto Boylston Street when she “felt, and this time saw, the second boom,” assuming they had to be celebratory cannons.

However, Jenn did not get much further down Boylston when she was stopped by a group of police officers. She asked repeatedly what was happening until she overheard a spectator mention the word “bomb.”

“That’s when it struck — the sheer, absolute panic,” recalled Jenn in a reflection piece she wrote Monday night. “The guilt — I had begged my family to come watch me run. Lauren came home from New York City for it. I lost it. I sobbed. I couldn’t breathe. I shook, knelt down and prayed. And then the strangers made it better.”

In the moments that followed Jenn said she was overwhelmed with acts of kindness — from the two young women who comforted her and helped her get in touch with her mother and sister to the other two women who gave her a hug and stayed by her side as she frantically tried to reach her fiancé.

Eventually she ran into two of her sister’s friends from Canton, Bryan Cogliano and Paul Amicangelo. Brian gave her his jacket and they walked with her until she finally met up with her fiancé, Terry, who had been at work when he received the call from Lauren, who was screaming hysterically into the phone.

Once reunited, Jenn and Terry made the long walk back to their apartment in Beacon Hill, where they immediately turned on the television.

“I learned so much,” said Jenn. “Saw it all up close now. I was so, so very angry. This beautiful day. This peaceful event. This monumental occasion. This international experience. This day of love, faith, hard work, and accomplishment. The bombs were planted and planned not to kill elite athletes, not for prize money, but to injure as many people at the most popular finish line as possible. Charity runners. Disabled runners. In the face of family, friends, spectators, children, and Newtown survivors.”

Jenn never got to see her sister or her mom in person that day, but she got to speak to them on the phone and was overjoyed to learn that they survived, both “physically and emotionally.”

“I consider us very lucky, because we were right there but on the opposite side of the street,” said Lauren, who took a train out of the city before driving back to New York. “I don’t ever want to be that close to witness something like that again.”

“My thoughts and prayers are with every single person and family member directly involved,” added Lauren. “My heart breaks for them.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Apr 18 2013. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.