Boston victim recalls horror of bombing Testimony paints pictures of grisly scene at finish line

— Roseann Sdoia saw two flashes of white light at her feet near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, looked down, and for a split second thought to herself: I’m wearing strappy sandals.

She quickly realized, no — she was looking at her foot dangling from her mangled leg.

“Someone came running over to me and told me I had to get out of there. I told them I couldn’t get up. I didn’t have a leg,” a sobbing Sdoia testified Thursday at the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Walking across the courtroom on an artificial limb plainly visible below the hemline of her skirt, Sdoia took the stand as federal prosecutors continued trying to drive home the horror of the attack in such graphic detail that Tsarnaev’s lawyers objected — and were overruled.

Sdoia, who was at the race as a spectator, said she saw wounded people all around her, including someone covered with soot, completely dazed and “walking around like a zombie. It was almost like I was starring in a horror movie, as everybody else was around me.”

Prosecutors also showed the jury a grisly photo of her shredded leg.

Tsarnaev, 21, could get the death penalty if convicted. His lawyer, Judy Clarke, has admitted that the former University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth student took part in the bombings. But in a bid to save Tsarnaev from a death sentence, she argued that he was influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a getaway attempt days after the bombing. The trial will resume Monday morning. Another witness, Boston police officer Lauren Woods, described trying to help save Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student who was among those killed.

Woods said Lu was put in an ambulance, but seconds later, a paramedic told Woods to take her out because “she was gone” and the ambulance was needed for those who could be saved.

Jeff Bauman, who lost both legs in the attack and was photographed being wheeled away that day in one of the most widely seen images of the tragedy, testified that he locked eyes with one of the bombers shortly before the twin blasts.

“He was alone. He wasn’t watching the race,” said Bauman, who had come to the race to cheer on his girlfriend. “I looked at him, and he just kind of looked down at me. I just thought it was odd. . . . It didn’t look like he was having fun like everyone else.”

Later, from his hospital bed, Bauman remembered the man’s face clearly enough to give the FBI a description of someone whom authorities say was Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

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