Capetonian Jason Bell finished his first Boston Marathon half an hour before two explosions rocked the finish line.
|||Cape Town - Capetonian Jason Bell finished his first Boston Marathon half an hour before two explosions rocked the finish line.
Speaking from Boston’s Logan International Airport on Tuesday, Bell told the Cape Argus of the “chaos, panic and pandemonium” that erupted in the minutes following the second blast.
Bell, programme director of International Fund for Animal Welfare in South Africa, was about 500m from the explosions. He had moved up the road to meet a friend, but when the friend did not arrive, he moved back towards the finish line.
“In the seconds between the two explosions, I did a tremendous amount of mental processing. I knew that it was a public holiday and suspected that cannon blasts may have been organised to accompany the festivities at the finish line. But then I asked, why would there be so much smoke? Next I thought it may have been a gas explosion at a restaurant.”
But when he saw screaming and crying people running both away from and towards the blast sites, the possibility of a terror attack crossed his mind. He moved away as police, paramedics and concerned loved ones ran straight towards the blast sites.
“It is ‘terrorism’. When you see something like that you realise how fitting that description is for an attack such as this. It’s impossible to remain calm, people just freaked out.”
Bell shared in this panic, not knowing whether his friend had been injured in the blast. It was only much later, when he borrowed a cellphone, that he found out that the friend was unharmed.
Bell made special mention of the calm professionalism displayed by police and race officials in the chaos. They calmly diverted the crowds, secured the site and assisted those with injuries to the medical tents.
In 2001, Bell was also in the US, near Boston, when the 9/11 attacks took place.
“It’s just a another surreal ending to another trip to the States. The Boston Marathon is one of the greatest races in the world. It was a wonderful experience up until that moment when everything changed,” he said.
Bell was scheduled to arrive back in Cape Town on Wednesday. He participated in the marathon to raise awareness of the plight of African elephants.
daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za
Cape Argus