Teen To Boston Marathon Runner: 'This Isn't My Blood'

Gary Dionne was only half a mile away from the finish line when he heard about a “bomb scare” at the finish line. He was exhausted and just wanted to get to the end of the marathon where his family was waiting. Then it finally registered:

They didn’t say “bomb scare,” they said bomb explosions.

The first-time marathon runner from Amherst is still shaken after the bomb attacks at the 2013 Boston Marathon that has left three confirmed dead, and over 176 injured. He was back home and preparing for a business trip Tuesday evening as he shared what he saw that day.

He was looking forward to finally reaching the end of his marathon run when people began to tell him to stop.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Dionne. “I kept thinking ‘what does this all mean?’” 

His first thought was the group of family members that were in that area. His wife, mother, sister, three daughters and husbands and niece were all there when the explosions went off.

He borrowed phones to reach any one of them, but no calls were going through. Runners were being directed to safety, but few had any idea what was going on.

Dionne said he approached a woman with a teenage son who looked like she may know what was happening. She told him that she had come from the finish line where the attack happened. He looked over to her son and saw that his leg was covered in blood.

“This isn’t my blood,” the teenager told him. “It is from other people who were there, who were hurt.”

This got him really worried and he frantically tried to reach his family. Finally, he came across two of his son-in-laws as they came around the corner. They assured Dionne that all of his family were okay, and this relief soon led to a tearful reunion.

He said he already had a bad feeling that day as he rode the bus to the starting line, but told himself that nothing bad could happen at a marathon.

“You think that these things don’t happen to you, but they do.”

None of his family were injured, but his son-in-law said that a fellow Nashua firefighter hadbeen injured from the explosion. He had jumped in to help out after the first one, and knocked down after the second, losing hearing in his ear.

Dionne feels thankful that he took the race slower than he had intended, because he may have been caught in the blast. Finishing the marathon is this 60-year-old’s dream, and he is not letting this evil act get in the way.

“I am definitely running again next year. I was just a half a mile short of the goal line, and I can’t stop now. We are supposed to get medals anyway, but medals are for finishing.”