Boston’s spirit will see it through bombing anniversary

Scot looks to mark anniversary of marathon terror.

Kirstie Crawford joined the frightened hordes fleeing the Boston subway station and stepped into a nightmare world.

The Glasgow girl may have made Boston her home but the city she was thrust into that Monday afternoon was terrifyingly chaotic and alien.

Two bombs had just gone off by the finish line of the world famous marathon in Boylston Street.

Three were killed and more than 250 were injured but fear gripped the streets as no one knew if the terror was over or only just beginning.

One year on, Boston is preparing for a poignant memorial to mark the anniversary and the staging of the first marathon there since the events that shocked the world.

Kirstie, whose flat is just two short blocks from where the bombs went off, has lived on an emotional rollercoaster over the past 12 months and the events can still make her cry easily and unexpectedly.

She moved to the States with her boyfriend five years back and has been working as a fundraising manager for the Samaritans for the past three years.

Speaking fully for the first time, she fought back tears as she recalled the events of April 15, 2013.

“I’d actually run the marathon, my first ever, in 2012, But last year I was helping support our 15-strong team who’d started the race and had just come back in on the subway from the route to the finish.

“We were just two stops away from the finishing line when everyone was told to evacuate. It was terrifying as the train was packed and we had no idea if it was a fire or something else serious.

“When we got to street level it was surreal as everyone was milling around, there were lots of helicopters and I could smell smoke. A policeman told us there had been an explosion and I just didn’t know what had happened to my friends who were running.

“When I was making my way to our office to try to make calls, so many runners were standing dazed and confused. People were traumatised and I did a lot of befriending, just stopping to give people hugs.”

Kirstie, now 40, spent three hours, “the longest of her life”, calling to confirm that everyone she knew was all right before returning to her nearby apartment.

As she did so, reminders of the carnage were everywhere, bloodied clothing littering her street.

For weeks Boylston Street was cordoned off and Kirstie’s home street was the broadcast base for the world’s media. Although she’d only ever done that one race, Kirstie and three friends entered the Chicago marathon in October.

“I did it for the city,” she explains. “We had T-shirts saying we were running for Boston and the last mile was really tough.

“When I was running up Michigan Avenue to the finish I got really upset because I kept thinking that this was the equivalent of where the bombs went off.

“I walk up Boylston Street every day, it’s my neighbourhood. Things tend to come in waves. Sometimes you pass by in a hurry and don’t think and other times it all comes flooding back. The signs for this year’s marathon have been going up in the past couple of weeks and that makes it all real.”

Kirstie, who was down on the field for an emotional commemoration at Fenway Park stadium, home of the Boston Red Sox, says the city was never going to be bowed.

A record 36,000 runners, 50% more than last year, are taking part, including two dozen from the Samaritans.

“I think they’re so courageous,” says Kirstie. “This is one of the world’s oldest marathons and there was never a doubt it’d be run again.

“President Obama came right away and the organisers said they wouldn’t let a horrible tragedy like this stop it. It can be hard in the 21st century to really know what community is but the spirit here has been phenomenal.

“There’s going to be a special memorial service on April 15 at the site and I think that will be incredibly moving.

“Once that’s over the city will have a week-long series of events leading up to the marathon on the 21st.

“The motto this year is We Run Together and I think that sums up the way the city feels.”