Heather McMorrow
Contributing Writer

Events of that Marathon Monday and the lockdown the following Friday were quite surreal.

My friend Jack was in town to run the marathon for the fourth time. He and I were at the Marathon Expo and ended up at the finish line about 48 hours before the bombing. We superstitiously didn’t want to walk across the finish line and tried to get through the very barriers that were ripped down to get to the bombing victims the following Monday. The barriers were so tight we could not find a way through. So we reluctantly walked across the finish line.

Most friends and family thought I might be waiting for Jack at the finish line, but I had a meeting at 3:00pm in Cambridge. As I sat in the lobby of the Charles hotel waiting for my colleague to arrive, Meg Smith, my successor at the Pioneer and maid-of-honor at my wedding, and close friend now for twenty years, called me at 3:55pm from Kansas. It matters who called that day.

I sometimes pass the spot on Main and Vasser in Kendall Square where Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed and my heart sinks each time. I continue to be startled when I go to the Shell Station where the brothers filled the car they stole and where the car’s owner made a break for safety to the Exxon station across the street.

I think about how the two very possibly drove by my apartment in Cambridge on their way to where they were cornered in Watertown. I remember my heart racing when my phone turned on at 6am the deluge of emergency alerts and texts from family flooded in. My sister-in-law, working that night at Children’s began texting at 3am to warn me to stay inside and lock my doors. I immediately jumped out of bed to print warnings for all the doors in my building to warn my neighbors who may not have yet seen the news. I came back in and sat in awe for the rest of the day watching the news crews report from in front of the Deluxe Town Diner where I meet my sisters for brunch on Sundays, and a national guard helicopter landed behind the Best Buy where I got my television. I think about how I may have walked my dogs down the street where the elder brother died in the shootout with police, and past the house where the younger brother crawled to hide in a boat covered for the winter.

I quickly grew tired of the Boston bravado and melodramatic news reports that took off in the days following the bombing after the lockdown. It was far from the atmosphere that the entertainment that passes as news these days was portraying; people in this city were cold and withdrawn. It felt eerie as we all moved listlessly through the city, or maybe it was just how I was feeling.

What I try to focus on are the concrete actions and positive outcomes from that day, not the melodrama and chest thumping. Had this not happened at the Boston Marathon finish line most of the people who lost limbs would have died. Every year there is a virtual field hospital tent set up at the finish line and is staffed with hundreds of volunteers medical personnel and supplies; not to mention that an unusually high percentage of people in Boston are trained or work in the medical field anyway.

I am extremely privileged to know several of the ER physicians who were on duty that day. Stephanie Kayden was the senior physician in charge of the emergency room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital that day. Two weeks after the bombing I volunteered at a weekend long humanitarian disaster simulation with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, a group with whom I work on educational projects. Stephanie is in charge of organizing this massive simulation. She and many of the other physicians in the Boston area volunteer regularly in humanitarian disaster situations around the world.

I asked Stephanie about her experiences that day. She and her colleagues were on duty for the marathon, she got the call about the bombing. “But we train for this kind of thing,” she said.  In minutes every one of the 250+ injured spectators went swiftly to eight area hospitals within one to five miles of the finish line. There are five hospitals  just within two miles of the finish line.

At the Brigham, they were already overstaffed for the marathon with a 50 person team. Stephanie said they went into action and called in an additional 60 doctors, nurses, and other staff in preparation for the influx of injuries to come. But I suspect as as soon as news of the bombing got out, every single medical and public safety professional who wasn’t already at work  headed in to their respective posts.

The Brigham received 31 injured spectators. “They were so well taken care of by the time they got to us it was just a matter of sending them up to surgery. We only had to perform one resuscitation. Soon we had all these doctors and nurses just standing around with nothing to do.”

Stephanie said that one of the most amazing tributes to the preparedness at the finish line and the swift action of everyone in the city was that these patients did not have to have anything amputated that the bomb didn’t already take off.

If you have ever been to the Boston Marathon you know how it brings out the best in humanity; from the runners to the spectators, at every step along the entire 26.3 mile route. It is pure joy if I have ever seen it. Next year I will be there to cheer on Jack, and the hundreds of other runners from around the world.  Who knows, maybe as the 2014 training season comes around in January I’ll reflect on the events of that week and use it to get inspired!