JP EMT Saw ‘Organized Chaos’ at Finish Line Medical Tent

Though the focus stayed on the victims and turned to the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, emergency medical personnel and first responders will always be a part of Patriots’ Day 2013.

Spokeswoman for Boston Emergency Medical Services and Jamaica Plain resident Jennifer Mehigan was taking photographs, tweeting and updating the press from a medical tent at Dartmouth Street and St. James Avenue Monday, April 15 just before 2:50 p.m.

Just after 2:50 p.m., when two bombs exploded near the finish line on Boylston Street, she began trying to help medics tend to the severely wounded.

“People started running from the finish line area…up Dartmouth,” she said. “Police were telling people to ‘go, go, go, go.’ ”

Mehigan said several “very badly injured” patients were being wheeled toward the medical tent. The scene, she said, was “organized chaos.”

One of the first patients she saw was a police officer with a calf injury.

“It was like his calf was cut in half horizontally,” she said. “It was an arterial bleed. It was a bad injury.”

Mehigan helped elevate and bandage the officer’s leg, but the officer, noticing patients with critical injuries stream through, told Mehigan to move on.

“He kept saying, ‘Go to them, go to them, I’m fine, go to them,’ ” she said.

Mehigan, a trained EMT, did not find out the explosions she heard were bombs allegedly set by brothers Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev until 4 p.m. that day. As soon as she heard them she went out from the tent and looked around hoping to spot a reason for the noises.

“Up toward Mass. Ave…on Dartmouth Street there was construction way up on a roof, it occurred to me: ‘Oh, maybe they dropped something and it made a really loud noise,’ ” she said. “I think I was trying to rationalize something that wasn’t dangerous.”

Medical staff in the tent began moving equipment and tables out of the way to make room. Mehigan threw her camera in a corner of the tent as first responders brought patient after patient.

“One of our paramedics just started grabbing boxes of gloves to get ready,” she said. “So I get gloves, I stand next to her and I said: “Tell me what to do.”

The tent had about 150 medical personnel at the time including EMTs, paramedics, physicians, nurses and physical therapists. On race day, they were expecting people to come in with dehydration and exhaustion, but they were well prepared for what they saw.

At the height of the scene, Mehigan saw about a dozen patients getting treatment all at once, she said. Three people died and over 180 were injured, some gravely. And it could have been a lot worse if not for that staff, she said.

“It was pretty amazing how everyone jumped into action,” she said. “Everyone became very focused. They took care of one patient, pushed that patient out, got them into an ambulance, and there was focus on the next patient.”