BOSTON — Two huge explosions rocked the Boston Marathon finish line at Copley Square on Monday afternoon, apparently causing numerous casualties and traumatic injuries, as the streets were crowded with runners, spectators and post-race partiers. A top city official said police were finding “more devices.”
Boston police tweeted, “23 injuries, 2 dead,” two hours ago. The number of injuries reported continues to be updated.
“Police sources say they are finding more devices,” said City Council President Steve Murphy, who was at the finish line when the two explosions happened.
Police have discovered at least two other devices and had a controlled detonation on at least one object.
“I saw two explosions. The first one was beyond the finish line,” said Boston Herald reporter Chris Cassidy, who was running in the marathon. “I heard a loud bang and I saw smoke rising. I kept running and I heard behind me a loud bang. It looked like it was in a trash can or something.
“That one was in front of Abe and Louie’s. There are people who have been hit with debris, people with bloody foreheads.”
Panicked families have begun gathering at local hospital.
“I need to see my mother!” one woman screamed to uniformed security holding media back outside Brigham and Woman’s Hospital.
A frantic scene is unfolding at Boston Medical Center. A parade of ambulances have been arriving at the emergency room entrance, and gurneys and wheelchairs were lined up awaiting casualties, some of whom arrived wrapped in the foil survival blankets commonly given out to runners at the finish line to keep warm.
A BMC spokesman called it a “developing situation” and said hospital officials don’t yet have a full picture of what their patient toll may be.
Supervisory Special Agent Martin Feely of the FBI’s New York Bureau said there was no advance warning or hint of a planned attack on Boston today.
Feely could neither confirm nor deny that New York has already dispatched agents to assist their Boston brethren, but said, “To the extent that assistance is needed, we certainly will.”
“It’s chaos down here,” said Chris McIntosh, publisher of the Boston Business Journal, who was at the Lenox Hotel near the scene. “Two bombs just went off at the finish line within five seconds of each other. There must be casualties. Now I’m seeing fire trucks and ambulances racing down Boylston Street toward the scene.”
David O’Neil of Westboro said he saw glass blown out of a restaurant window on Boylston Street.
“Just a really loud explosion, glass and smoke everywhere. We just ran,” O’Neil said.
Stunned and crying people could be seen walking away from the scene down Beacon Street.
Susan Markow was standing with a friend in front of the bar Whiskey’s.
“Everything was fine. Then all of a sudden, we just heard one explosion, huge. Not seconds later, another one. Everything stopped,” Markow said. She was waiting for her son Daniel to cross the finish line and was still looking for him when she spoke to the Herald.
Her daughter Lindsey was at the finish line, and sent a rushed text, “MOM call MS.”
Markow said she was “terrified. Awful. It’s not good, not good.”
She described a scene of panic but she said calm took over a minute later and people were orderly as they left the area.
At the marathon finish line, City Council President Murphy said he was “30 to 40 feet” from the two explosions.
“I heard an explosion and then another one 15 seconds later,” Murphy told the Herald. The councilor said he saw people injured and several people being taken out in ambulances.
“I saw a guy coming towards me with blood on his face,” a shaken Murphy said.
Rachel Fox, Herald reporter who was interviewing people at the finish line, was several hundred feet from the blasts.
A runner in his mid-30s who said he was an Army veteran from Maryland said, “I’ve lived through Afghanistan five times and Iraq twice. I can’t believe it happened here.”
“People were screaming and crying. I saw people fall to the ground. I wasn’t sure if it was runners falling from exhaustion or injuries,” Fox said.
