A few minutes after crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, uMhlanga resident Lance Corbett heard the muffled sound of a bomb explosion.
|||Durban - A few minutes after crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, uMhlanga resident Lance Corbett heard the muffled sound of a bomb explosion two blocks away.
This was followed by a second explosion, about 15 seconds later.
Speaking on their return home yesterday at King Shaka International Airport, Corbett, 44, recalled his experience of the Patriots’ Day attacks that claimed the lives of three people, injuring more than 180.
Corbett said he didn’t realise at the time what the sound was, and continued to his hotel nearby, The Chandler Inn, where he met up with his wife, Leigh.
“After finishing the race, all the runners were herded along Boylston Road, given a space blanket and water. I carried on to the family area where I stopped to rest a while. That was when I heard the explosion,” Corbett recalled calmly. “Nobody around seemed to know what had happened.”
Having not seen her husband cross the finish line, Leigh Corbett, 41, went to meet him at the hotel.
“I was about three blocks away, one road adjacent to Boylston Road, and I didn’t hear a thing,” said Leigh. “It was only after Lance had returned to the hotel and showered that we got a phone call from a family member asking whether we were safe. That was when we found out about the bombs.”
The two were inundated with phone calls, SMSes and Facebook messages from friends and family back home, checking if they were safe.
Although originally booked to fly back to South Africa from Boston on Tuesday, the couple opted to take a train to New York and caught a flight back to South Africa from there, fearing the Boston Logan Airport would be chaotic.
Talking about the reaction to the bombings, Lance said people remained fairly calm away from the bomb site, but the security presence was felt.
“We didn’t see any of the injured, but the emergency reaction was quick.
“There were police with sniffer dogs at the train station, several of the underground railway lines were shut and we could see about 40 to 50 ambulances lined up to take the injured away.
“People were just devastated. The overwhelming feeling was ‘this is surreal’. There is a lot of pride in Boston, especially for the marathon. Even people not involved would volunteer just to be a part of it,” said Lance.
Lance, a member of DHS Old Boys’ and Regent’s Harrier’s running clubs, who has run numerous marathons worldwide, will run his second Comrades Marathon in June.
Daily News