Lieutenant Colonel Scott LaRonde, professor of military science, was one of the runners at the Boston Marathon where explosions, according to Boston police, left three runners dead and about 176 injured on April 15.
“I was about 250 meters from the finish line,” LaRonde said. “I had finished about seven minutes before the bomb went off, so I had just gotten my medal and I heard it. And I was facing the other direction, and I knew exactly what it was.”
A few seconds later, the second bomb went off.
“I turned around and I saw the plume. And the first thing I thought was: ‘I can’t believe they did it, that they would do something like this to Boston,’” LaRonde said. “The second thing that went through my head was: ‘Should I go back and help, or try and help, or do I try to get the people here to move out of the way?’”
LaRonde stayed at the finish line, trying to move fellow runners as the first responders flooded the scene. Although investigators later found other bombs, only two of them were successfully detonated.
“It was pretty surreal,” LaRonde said. “I’m used to when I’m in Afghanistan or Iraq hearing loud noises. Hearing them in the states is a little bit of a surprise.”
While the trigger to the bombs remains unknown, CNN said some officials suspected cell phones were used.
“We learned very quickly that cell phones had been turned off. That was a great decision,” LaRonde said. “A lot of bombs are triggered by cell phones, so they turned the cell phones off pretty quickly.”
With cell phone service shut off, LaRonde was only able to text his wife that he was alright before he left for the nearest in-service subway station about three miles away. He was then able to fly back to Lakeland that night.
He said that everyone seemed very calm.
“I’m not a judge of this, I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that they did not overreact. They reacted accordingly,” LaRonde said.
At the airport, investigators asked LaRonde if he had seen anything suspicious.
“There were numerous times, because I was wearing my Boston Marathon paraphernalia, that investigators asked me if I had seen anything special in particular,” LaRonde said. “They were asking anyone anybody who was wearing Boston Marathon clothing if they had seen something.”
The Boston Athletic Association’s website released a statement on April 15 at 8 p.m. ET.
“Today is a sad day for the City of Boston, for the running community, and for all those who were here to enjoy the 117th running of the Boston Marathon,” the website said. “What was intended to be a day of joy and celebration quickly became a day in which running a marathon was of little importance.”
“I was about 250 meters from the finish line,” LaRonde said. “I had finished about seven minutes before the bomb went off, so I had just gotten my medal and I heard it. And I was facing the other direction, and I knew exactly what it was.”
Although the perpetrators remain unknown, President Barack Obama spoke to the press on April 16, labeling the bombs “as an act of terrorism.”
“This was a heinous and cowardly act, and given what we now know about what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism,” Obama said. “Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
