‘That could have been us,’ Hamiltonian says of victims
Johnny Malavolta had just entered the subway after a Boston Marathon run that was six seconds off his personal best when he realized something was terribly wrong.
“We were standing waiting for the train and suddenly there were people telling us to evacuate,” Malavolta said Tuesday from Boston, where he was milling through crowds at the Quincy Market, a downtown tourist draw.
“We thought it must be something major for them to get people out of the subway, but it was very orderly,” said the 47-year-old Hamilton plumber. “It wasn’t until we got to the street that we realized everything was in chaos.”
He and his sister, brother-in-law and girlfriend didn’t know that frantic friends and relatives from Hamilton were calling and texting.
The bedlam of police, firefighters, ambulances and a parade of people in crisis was overwhelming.
“Sirens, sirens, sirens, and they didn’t stop,” said his sister, Christina Del Bello, who eventually learned they’d been watching for Malavolta’s finish across the street from the second bomb that rocked the marathon’s final stretch.
“That could have been us,” Del Bello said. “It’s unreal, surreal, really shocking.”
The terrorist assault marked the famous race with carnage, killing three, critically injuring 17 and sending at least 175 others to hospital.
Explosives packed into pressure cookers spewed shards of metal, nails and ball bearings at ground level into the crowd.
Downtown core streets remained cordoned off Tuesday, with military Humvees parked on street corners, and soldiers and police patrolling streets and alleys.
Malavolta said Tuesday he was horrified by the wreckage the explosions caused.
“I thought what a beautiful day, what an ugly ending. Your body, your mind, your hope is just wiped out.”
In Hamilton, Road to Hope Marathon director Gord Pauls said the explosions took away the power of “an amazing event, where there’s so much energy, and the city just opens its arms to you.”
Road to Hope is a qualifying race for Boston.
Pauls, who also owns the Runner’s Den, said two of his entrants were stopped at the 40-kilometre mark and are both OK.
He said while runners are concerned about what happened, “I don’t think it will affect us too much up here in Canada.”
Pauls said he will meet with police in the next few weeks about arrangements for the November marathon in Hamilton, which attracts 5,000, but added, “We’re all just going to keep running.”
Mayor Bob Bratina sent a message of sympathy to Boston’s mayor. He noted that Hamilton has a special relationship with that city and its historic marathon. Around the Bay is the oldest road race in North America, having been founded in 1894, three years before Boston’s. Hamilton and Boston share a reputation as meccas for long-distance running.
“Hundreds of Hamiltonians have run Boston, including myself on two occasions,” Bratina said. “Those experiences led my family to love the city. Boston is a special place and not deserving of this ignominious act of violence.”
Mike Zajczenko, race director for Around the Bay, said he was shocked. “Let’s f ace it, you don’t expect it to happen at any type of event, but at a running event where there are kids and families, it just doesn’t make sense.”
For Malavolta’s group, there was disbelief. Like the families of other runners who finished before the devastation, they took out cameras to check photos of where they’d stood and see how narrowly they’d escaped.
“You saw that picture of those people still running, or that older man in the orange vest who got up and finished the race,” said Malavolta. “He did exactly the right thing. I would have gotten myself up off that ground, too.”
More than 2,000 Canadians were in Boston for the marathon, including 27 from Hamilton, but there were no immediate reports of injured Canadians.