Unfortunately for Jeff Bauman, he was at the finish line
waiting for his girlfriend Erin to cross when Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed the
black backpack with the bomb at Jeff’s feet. Imagine Jeff’s fear when he turned
to see that Tamerlan was no longer there but his unattended black backpack was!
Within seconds the bomb contained inside the bag went off-- blowing off Jeff’s
feet and legs. It is a miracle he survived this heinous attack on innocent
people.
There is a famous photo of Jeff being wheeled by a man in a
cowboy hat from the bombed area to an ambulance. That iconic photo has become a symbol for
this entire tragic event.
There were many reflections of Jeff’s that were stunning to
me. He survived the loss of his legs and
was still conscious!! He tried to
tell the ambulance attendants, “I know what happened. It was a bomb. I saw the
guy who did it.” But Jeff was slipping in and out of consciousness. He finally asked to be put under. Because the
EMT’s misspelled his name as Bowman,
police were not able to find him. They simply weren’t looking at the hospital
records for Bauman.
Read this highly informative book to grasp the courage it takes to come back from an event as
devastating as the bombing at the Boston Marathon.
