Charlestown Marathon Runner 'Grateful To Be Alive'

[UPDATED Tuesday, April 16, 10:24 a.m.]

A leg injury Charlestown resident Jack Kelly suffered just days before he ran his first Boston Marathon may have helped save him from more serious injury.

Kelly, 32, was near Boston College, heading down the final stretch of the race on Monday afternoon when two explosions went off near the finish line at Copley Square, sending the crowd into chaos.

The Charlestown resident had been battling a calf injury right before the marathon and was nursing the injury as he ran. Earlier in the race, he had been forced to walk up the famous “Heartbreak Hill” in Newton and because of that was about 11 minutes off his usual pace.

Without the injury, Kelly likely would have been further along the marathon route when the explosions occurred—possibly, he believes, at the finish line.

Instead, still about 45 minutes away from Copley Square, Kelly didn’t hear the blasts or know immediately what had happened, only that he and other runners on the marathon route were told by police to stop running.

“The police presence all of a sudden picked up,” Kelly said. “At first I thought it was because people were falling and getting sick.”

But the police presence quickly became “too intense” for that to be the problem. Having worked for several years in the mayor’s office in Boston, Kelly could tell from experience that something big was going on.

He recognized a police officer nearby and asked him what had happened. The officer told Kelly what he knew.

“I immediately freaked out and got very worried about my family and friends,” Kelly said. Loved ones were waiting at the finish line for him to come in.

For the next 45 minutes to an hour, Kelly and many of his fellow runners tried to contact their friends and relatives that were in the Copley Square area. Eventually, Kelly was able to determine that everyone he knew was OK.

“It was a very emotional time for a lot of the runners,” he said.

He also confirmed that two other Charlestown residents who were running with him—Kate Caruso and Emily Bryson—were not injured in the explosions.

About 80 Charlestown residents were set to participate in the 117th annual Boston Marathon on Monday morning. At the end of the day, with the race halted following the explosions, less than half of these runners had finish times posted on the Boston Athletic Association website.

Eventually, Kelly was able to get a ride home to Charlestown from a friend.

Talking with Patch from home, Kelly said he was still “very shaken up” from the day’s events, and “very grateful to be alive.”

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the people that have lost their lives and that got hurt. I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now,” he said.

Kelly said he had heard “a lot of anger” around the city in the aftermath of the explosions.

“Whoever did this probably changed the Marathon forever,” he said. “We need to band together and try to be there for each other as a city.”

He paused, then added: “I’m sort of in shock right now.”

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