I have bad days, but I’ve got my life back
Boston marathon bomb victim Jeff Bauman tells HANNAH STEPHENSON what it was like seeing his life played out on screen by Jake Gyllenhaal in the film adaptation of his book
JUST four-and-a-half years ago, Bostonian Jeff Bauman was a sportsloving guy with a job at Costco, a solid group of friends and a bright future.
He went to cheer on Erin Hurley, his on-off girlfriend, at the 2013 Boston Marathon – when he was struck by the blast of one of two terrorist bombs and lost both his legs. The attack killed three people and wounded more than 260.
He’d noticed the bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, standing about a foot away, wearing sunglasses, a white baseball cap pulled low over his face and a heavy hoodie.
“The thing that really struck me, though, was his demeanour,” Jeff, 31, recalls in his book Stronger, which has been adapted into the eponymous film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, released next week.
“Everyone was cheering and enjoying themselves. Except this guy. He was alone, wasn’t having a good time. He was all business.”
He was so concerned that he suggested to a friend that they move closer to the finish line. But when he looked back, the man was gone, leaving his backpack on the ground near Jeff’s feet. Then came the explosion.
Jeff, who was pictured being carried away from the scene of the explosion, lost both legs above the knee. An ER surgeon close by wrapped tourniquets around his damaged legs and he was lifted into a wheelchair and rushed to an ambulance. Doctors at Boston Medical Center. said he was about three minutes from death.
Four years on, it’s testament to his determination and inner strength that he has recently been pictured walking the red carpet with Jake at the film’s premiere.
“I don’t know what I feel about it. It’s kind of overwhelming but it’s a good experience,” he reflects. “I know not everyone has this opportunity. Only about 2% of books get made into a movie. So it’s cool and I think that’s amazing.”
He’s known Jake for more than two years and he’s become like family, he says. The movie was filmed at the rehabilitation centre in Boston, where he recovered, and even features the doctors and nurses who treated him.
In it, viewers see his real surgeon Dr Jeffrey Kalish breaking the news to his parents, played by Miranda Richardson and Clancy Brown.
“Everyone involved wanted to get the realness of the situation. It’s a real story. Jake’s a great person who really cares about his work. He really got into what it is to be an amputee, to understand what it took for me to even get out of bed.”
He says the film reduced him to tears a few times.
“Jake captured the agony really well, and it was really hard to see what I’ve been through.”
Jeff was instrumental in helping the FBI catch the killers. Soon after emergency surgery, from his hospital bed, he told the authorities that he had seen one of the bombers and identified Tsarnaev in a photograph.
The attacker died in a gun battle with police days after the bombing and Jeff testified at the 2015 trial of Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar, who was given the death penalty.
While Jeff became a hero in Boston, away from the media spotlight, he embarked on a succession of rehabilitation therapies, learning to walk again with prosthetic limbs, and suffered much pain, both mental and physical. He has had bouts of depression and heavy drinking, but says he has been alcohol-free for the last 16 months.
His relationship with Erin (played by Tatiana Maslany) is also explored in the film, from the initial explosion, when she was frantically trying to find out what happened to him, to the difficulties she had in their relationship during his painful rehabilitation.
They married in 2014 and have a three-year-old daughter, Nora. But earlier this year, announced they were getting divorced.
“My drinking took a toll on our relationship. The first couple of years I was drinking and partying, masking it [the depression] by staying out all night, being irresponsible. Now I don’t do that. I haven’t drunk for almost a year and a half.
“She left and that made me realise, ‘I’m going to lose everything’. I’d lost Erin but now I can’t lose Nora.”
He admits he still struggles with depression and has therapy twice a week, but he has made great progress and is studying mechanical engineering.
“My prosthetics are hard to work on, especially being a double [amputation] above the knee. It’s hard to navigate. I have to walk every day and keep walking. That’s a tough spot.
“Otherwise, I’m adapted to life. I get out, I drive. It’s just getting back into normal life. It’s hard, but once you accomplish that and get back to some sort of normal routine, it’s awesome. It’s like ‘OMG, I got my life back!”’
He walks a couple of miles a week, but needs a cane when attempting uneven surfaces like grass, or when playing outside with his daughter.
He hasn’t had pain killers for years, but still has good days and bad days “when I wake up and I really don’t feel like doing anything. I’ll look at my legs and don’t really want to put them on.”
He’s too focused on his own future to think about the death sentence facing Dzhokhar, he says.
“As long as he’s not free and he can’t hurt anybody else, I don’t really care about that,” he says.
For now, he’s relishing his time with his daughter. “My life revolves around her, it’s pretty sweet. I try to do fun stuff with her every day.”
In some ways, his life is richer today than it was before.
“I’ve learned to let people in. I was a loner before. I was isolated. I had a few friends, but now I have a lot of new friends. In that aspect, I am richer. I’m not going to say it’s not harder – it definitely is harder dealing with everything mentally and physically.
“But I’m blessed in that I wouldn’t have Nora if I hadn’t gone through this – and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
Stronger by Jeff Bauman with Bret Witter, published by Blink, £8.99.
The film is released on December 8.