A Volunteer, A Bystander, A Runner – Local Boston Marathon Stories

Jenn Foisy, a teacher at Hanaford Elementary School in East Greenwich, was volunteering at the finish of the Boston Marathon Monday, about 1,000 feet away from the actual finish line, when the bombs went off. 

"I saw it, I felt it, I heard it," she said Tuesday. "The second the first one happened, we knew it wasn’t right. We thought it was a cannon, but we said, 'This is not right,'" Foisy recalled. "You looked at everybody – you were kind of in a daze and you say, 'OK, did that really happen?'"

Foisy immediately used her phone to post to Facebook: "Something big just happened at the Finish line. 2 explosions." 

On Boylston Street, EG resident Tracy Barron had just ordered lunch at a bar and grille about 100 feet from the finish line.

"Yesterday began as an exciting day for some of my running group friends and me," Barron said via email. "We hopped on the train from Wickford and headed up to Boston to cheer on some on our 'sweat sisters,' the name of our club. It was a perfect day for a marathon. We watched as the wheelchairs and elite men and women runners made their way to the finish line from the 25th mile. We had been tracking our friends and knew how long we had before we needed to be at the finish line to cheer them on, so we began walking towards mile 26.2."

They had a bit of time and they were really hungry so they ducked into the restaurant to catch a quick bite. 

"We still wanted to spectate, so I asked for a window seat," she said. "We arrived at 2:30, ordered our lunch and agreed to eat really fast so we could get to the finish line in time. Within minutes of receiving our lunch we heard a loud boom but didn't pay much attention to it, until the next one. At that point spectators began running and screaming ... some ran into the restaurant. My first instinct was that there was a crazed gunman outside and I jumped up from my seat and away from the window. My body went numb at that point."

By then there was smoke outside and everyone in the restaurant was evacuated out the back onto Newbury Street.

Meanwhile, on the race course itself, EG resident Mark Schwager (a member of the EG Fire District and former Town Councilor) was nearing the finish line after a good race. 

"I was a half mile from the finish. Everything was great. I felt good and I was kicking and in the zone," he said. "All of a sudden, the race stopped. I was literally four minutes from the finish." 

Word spread that there had been an explosion. Schwager thought about his wife, Patricia Flanagan, who was waiting nearer the finish for him. His fears were quickly allayed as she sent him a text from her spot on Hereford Street – she'd heard the explosions but was OK.

Runners were diverted to Commonwealth Avenue. Schwager wandered around for awhile, then sat down for a moment. "I looked up and right in front of me there was Pat," he said, recalling his amazement. Together, they headed to their hotel by the wharf.

On Newbury Street, Barron wasn't sure what to do. With cell phone service down, she and her friend couldn't reach anyone.

"There was a party at an apartment on the corner of Newbury and Gloucester streets," said Barron. "They were so kind and gracious. They invited us into their home, so we went inside and waited for the OK to leave the city.

At around 5 p.m., they heard from their friend Amanda, whom they had been planning to see finish the marathon two hours earlier. She told Barron and her friend to get to the corner of Berkeley and Columbus streets as fast as they could and they could get a ride back to Rhode Island on a marathon bus.

"We ran as fast as we could and got on the bus and reunited with Amanda and her husband," Barron said.

Back with the volunteers, Jenn Foisy was trying to help runners and keep the street open for emergency vehicles.

Originally, she and her group of volunteers were on Boylston at Clarendon Street, about a block and a half past the finish. Immediately after the blasts, runners were still coming toward them, then suddenly there were no more runners and the volunteers from closer to the finish line were being pushed toward them. 

Their whole operation had to move back a block to Berkeley Street, then over a block to St. James Avenue.

"It was pretty surreal," said Foisy. "We just did our best to clear the streets for the police, Secret Service, fire trucks, rescue – they just kept coming and coming."

The runners were coming too. Many had been re-routed and they showed up confused and unsure what to do next, she said. "The runners ... had no idea ... they knew, but they didn't know. 

We just kept wrapping them in the blankets."

There were no police where Foisy was. All the public safety people were in the immediate finish area. And cell phone service was down for a while, so there was this strange period of limbo, she said, in which no one really knew what was happening but they were supposed to be directing runners.

"I kept thinking of September 11 and how this must have been what it was like, in a much smaller way," she said.

At some point, the number of runners slowed down. By now, hours had passed but many volunteers were still on hand.

"It was amazing the number of volunteers who stayed," Foisy said, although some had fled in fear early on. By 6 p.m., she looked around and realized her job was done and that now it was time for her to find a way home. 

"I had a complete stranger drive me to Newton to get me to my car," she said. A couple who were volunteering with her, who she'd only just met an hour or two earlier, asked her how she was going to get home. She said she didn't know, since the trains weren't running. 

"'Well, you come with us,' they said. They drove me to my car in Newton. I don't even know their last names," said Foisy.

She had run the Boston Marathon 5K on Sunday and had loved it, getting to cross the finish line she is hoping to one day cross as a marathon runner. Monday was perfect marathon weather and everyone had been in a great mood, Foisy said. "It was a great day up until a quarter of three," she said. Even after the explosions, she was amazed at the spirit among the volunteers and runners. 

This was the first time she'd been to the marathon since her childhood, when she would go with a group to a spot early on the course and hand out small cups of water. 

"From the time I was 8, it was on my bucket list, so to speak," said Foisy. "I’m going to run this someday," she had told herself. But Foisy only started thinking seriously about it 10 months ago when, at age 40, she took up running. Since then, she's completed two half marathons, gone from 15-minute miles to 9-minute miles and is now set on qualifying for Boston.

Foisy didn't get back to her home in Cumberland, Rhode Island, until 10 p.m. Monday night. Glad to be home at last, she wondered if she'd ever want to volunteer for the Boston Marathon again. But, then, "at about 3 this morning I decided that I would volunteer again," she said.

"I'll keep volunteering until I qualify."