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'I got injured and missed the bomb by a mile'

A British runner said he had a 'lucky escape' at the Boston Marathon after he pulled a muscle and had to slow down on the final straight just before two deadly explosions ripped through the city.

Relieved Nick Bailey, 56, was among a handful of Brits who described the scenes of terror in Boston in the moments after two bombs exploded close to the finish line of the city's famous marathon.

The primary school teacher was a mile from the finish line when the second bomb went off - leaving three people dead and dozens injured.

He fears he would have been caught up in the carnage had he been running his usual marathon time.

'Sometimes it's good to be a little slow,' said the runner, of Chichester, West Sussex, today.

In Facebook post to friends and family, he added: 'I was about a mile from the finish when the second bomb went off so we were stopped and evacuated six miles out and it's taken well over four hours to get things sorted like the bags.

'If I hadn't had a muscle pull on heartbreak hill and slowed down, who knows?

'My sympathies go out to all the runners that died and those who lost their legs. Thanks be to God.'

Meanwhile, two-time Boston Marathon winner Geoff Smith, from Liverpool, told how he fled the city with his daughter in the wake of the deadly double bomb blast yesterday.

Mr Smith, 59, said 'all we could hear was sirens', while television presenter Abi Griffiths, from London, described the ground shaking and billows of white smoke in the air as horrified runners, spectators and staff struggled to make sense of what had happened.

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Chaos: Television presenter Abi Griffiths (left), 34, from London, crossed the finish line just before the bombs went off in Boston, while Liverpool-born Geoff Smith, right, fled the city with his daughter after th
Other British runners shared their stories, including Jeremy Hughes, 47, a fireman from Leeds who had been due to meet his wife and son at the finish line when the bombs went off but didn't when she changed her mind.

Former runner Mr Smith, who won the race in 1984 and 1985, left a VIP reception by the finish line to go to a restaurant with friends just before the bombs went off.

He told how he went to the toilet in the restaurant and when he returned the bar had fallen silent.

Smith told GoLocalProv: ‘People were barely speaking, just saying "Oh my God". Everyone was looking at the television screens at the bar.

‘I watched for a minute and then I said to my daughter that the best thing is to get out of the city. We walked down Tremont Street, got in our car, and got out of the city.’

Mr Smith described the subdued atmosphere that enveloped the city, in stark contrast to the jubilant atmosphere that usually follows the annual marathon.

‘All we could hear was sirens,’ he said. ‘About 12 ambulances went past us as we made our way to the car.'
British runner Tricia Bunn talks about her experience at the...




Blasts: Explosions have ripped through the spectator area near the finish line at the Boston Marathon




‘The sad thing is that most of the people who were there are mothers, father, husbands, wives, children. They are waiting for their family members to finish the race.

‘It leaves a hollow feeling in your whole body. What can you do?'

Mr Smith, now a motivational speaker said: ‘What's it going to do to everything. It's not just the Boston Marathon. It's everything. It's our way of life.'

TV presenter Abi Griffiths, 34, from London, said she crossed the finish line moments before the bombs went off.

'The ground shook and people looked lost... there were billows of white smoke in the air'

British marathon runner Abi Griffiths

She described desperately searching for her boyfriend amid scenes of chaos in the city.

'The ground shook and people looked lost,' she told The Times.

Speaking to Sky News, she said: 'There were billows of white smoke in the air... You kind of knew it was a terrorist attack.

'The ground shook and immediately people sort of looked around - it was just too loud to be something that wasn’t serious.

'People kind of didn’t know what to do. Then all of a sudden it went into a state of chaos: police were everywhere, we were being evacuated out of the area and it was really eerie.

'It was very, very scary and what should be a major celebration of the achievement of running 26.2 miles suddenly became a frightening scene.'She said police had swung into action quickly.

'This is just such an awful scene to have happened,' Ms Griffiths continued. 'It felt like it may have come from the inside of a shop.'

Ms Griffiths, whose boyfriend Terry Stephens finished the race before her, said she began to fear for his safety amid the chaotic scenes.

The couple were eventually reunited and were directed away from the scenes of carnage yesterday.



'The ground shook': At least three people were killed and more than 100 injured in the explosions in Boston yesterday

Leeds firefighter Jeremy Hughes, 47, finished the race half an hour before the blasts and had been due to wait by the finish line for his wife Deborah and young son, Harry.

She told the Evening Standard: 'We were texting after the race about where we were going to meet.


Fireman Jeremy Hughes had a lucky escape when he was due to meet his wife at the finish line but she changed her mind

'Jez asked us to come over to the finish line, but I told him to come out to the meeting point, even though he was tired.'

She added: 'It's those little things that just seem like fate.'

Mr Hughes told ITV: 'I was waiting with a few hundred others near the finish line. My wife rang and asked if we could meet at the family area.

'I was reluctant as I could hardly walk but it turns out it was the best thing we could have done.'

Runner Eamon Loughran, from Northern Ireland, told how he prayed for three hours as he waited for his wife after the two bomb blasts ripped through the marathon.

Mr Loughran, from Ballymena, had arranged to meet his wife, Angela, by the flags at the finish line, exactly where the first device exploded.

He said he was 'thinking the worst' as he went back to his hotel, where he walked up and down and cried.

'I was thinking the worst because I knew that's where I told her to be,' he said.

'I was looking at the TV, I was watching the TV to see.

'My wife was the only one that hadn't come back.'



Boston police officers drew their guns as they heard the second blast further down the street - meanwhile 78-year-old Bill Iffrig lay dazed on the floor

Mr Loughran said they both burst into tears when she walked in through the hotel door.

'She was worried about me and I was so relieved, thankful to God,' he told RTE.

'I couldn't ring home when I had been in the hotel for three hours. I didn't want to ring until both of us were OK.'

Owain Griffiths, from Cardiff, said he was just half a mile from the finishing line when two bombs exploded.

The 37-year-old told Wales Online had travelled to the race as part of a five-strong group of Welsh runners.

He said: 'I had headphones in listening to music so I couldn’t hear anything, but it was when everybody started shouting and panic started to break out I stopped.



Runners continue to race towards the finish line in Boston as an explosion erupts on the sidewalk

'Nobody knew what had happened, and people were running away screaming and rushing away from the areas as quickly as they could.

'It was pretty scary as the panic broke out, there were people crying around me and I was wondering what had happened to all my friends.

'There was group of five of us from Cardiff and some friends from England taking part, some of them were in front of me so I was really worried for their safety.

'One of my friends, Felicity, who is from Reading, was 200 metres from the finishing line when the bombs went off.

'So she was right there and saw it. She rang me after to tell me she was safe and how lucky she was. She said she saw the explosions and didn’t know what to do.



A man sobs as he is reunited with a Boston Marathon runner after yesterday's explosions wracked the city

'She was terrified, she didn’t know whether to keep on running but she ran onto the pavement and was pulled to safety by a really nice family who took her away from the area.'

Bev Dowrick, from Torpoint in Cornwall, said she had just finished the marathon in 3 hours and 31 minutes and was heading towards the family area to meet her husband when the explosions happened.

'I was about 300 metres away,' she told BBC Radio Cornwall. 'You feel the explosion first of all, then you hear the bang and then the smoke.

'There were two explosions and everyone around me was a bit stunned. The police start running, the sirens start going and you get a sense that this isn’t a firecracker going off, or a clap of thunder.'

Ms Dowrick, a physiotherapist, said she returned to a nearby apartment with her husband, her friend who also ran the race, and her partner.



The streets of Boston were filled with people distraught at what they had seen trying to call their loved ones

'Right now the four of us in our apartment are veering from elation that we’re safe, elation that we’ve finished the marathon and absolute disbelief that we’ve been caught up in something this horrific, and disbelief that people have lost their lives and we’re safe,' she said.

'You feel that you shouldn’t feel so happy that you’re safe.'

William Bowry, from Perth, Scotland, and a teacher at The British School of Boston, was looking for a friend near the finish line when the bombs went off.

'I remember viscerally feeling the joy and sense of wonder and then suddenly there was this huge eruption from behind me.
' I turned and there was this funnel of smoke shooting in the sky.'

- William Bowry, from Perth

The 29-year-old told the Daily Telegraph: 'I was there as people were collecting medals and I remember viscerally feeling the joy and sense of wonder and then suddenly there was this huge eruption from behind me.'

'I turned and there was this funnel of smoke shooting in the sky. People were standing stunned and then 10 seconds later was the next explosion.

'When the second one went off your mind leapt to the suspicion that it was a bomb. There was the noise and the fury of the explosion and then you could quite palpably hear the screams and the cries of panic.'

Mr Bowry, who told the newspaper he was about 100 metres from the first bomb as it went off, added: 'It was such a wonderful and glorious day and there was a sense that Boston was at its finest, and that was invaded and completely ripped to sheds.'

A headteacher from the West Midlands told how she heard a 'rumble' beneath her feet as she ran and assumed it was an underground railway.

Tricia Bunn, 38, from Tamworth, had collected her medal and was walking back to her bus when she felt and heard the noise.

She said she then heard sirens and assumed 'someone had had a bad race'.


Tricia Bunn, of Tamworth, completed yesterday's race and was at airport security on her way home when she was told what she had escaped

It was only when she went through security in the airport on her way home that she discovered what had happened.

'When I was at the airport in the security queue a guy said "Well done, you finished - lots didn't". He then told me, and I found out,' she said.

Mrs Bunn said she went into 'blind panic' because she could not get a mobile phone signal to tell her husband, 41-year-old Richard, and her family she was safe.

She managed to get a message through eventually using social media site Facebook.

Mrs Bunn, who said she is now glad she resisted the temptation to run more slowly in the heat yesterday, said the Boston Marathon's toughness was 'legendary' to runners because competitors have to post a good enough time to qualify for a place.

'To think, the joy that people go through coming down the finish straight, turning into terror,'" she said.

'It is just awful - it is good to be home.'

Mr and Mrs Bunn are now planning to run this weekend's London Marathon.

She said: 'I think the London runners will make it a tribute to Boston and make it the best London Marathon ever," she said. 'That's the best thing to do.'

She will to run the London race wearing the bright yellow competitor's jersey given to all those who take part in the Boston Marathon.

Mark Jenkin, a sports writer from North Devon, was back in his hotel after completing the race when the explosions killed and maimed spectators.

The 34-year-old said he felt 'grateful to be okay'.

'When I arrived back at my hotel no one knew anything about what had happened. But by the time I got to my room all I could hear were police sirens and ambulance sirens and helicopters outside.

'My hotel is a few blocks away from the finish line. Everyone at the hotel seems stunned. We sat around in the TV room trying to take it in. It's hard to take in.

'The people of the city put on a great race and it's such a tragedy this has happened. I just feel grateful to be okay.'



Confusion: Marathon runner Bill Iffrig, 78, was seen lying on the ground amid scenes of chaos in Boston in the wake of the double bombing

The confirmed death toll rose to three today, as eight-year-old Martin Richard was named as one of the victims of the deadly blasts.

The little boy had been waiting at the finish line to give his father, who was taking part in the race, a hug when he completed the marathon.

Sheffield Hallam University student Anthony Meenaghan, 21, who is on a work placement in Boston, was running in the marathon with his father, also called Anthony.

He said it was a 'sad day', adding: 'Can't believe what I saw and heard'.

Mr Meenaghan, from Bingham, near Nottingham, tweeted: 'Thanks for all messages. I'm safe and well. Can't believe what I saw and heard. Sad day.'



People walked around dazed and bleeding after two bombs went off little over four hours into the race

His mother, Tracy Mumford tweeted: 'My son Anthony Meenaghan and his dad were running the Boston Marathon today for charity xxx i thank God they are both safe!!!'

Bobby Hillard, from Clonakilty in Cork, Ireland, said he had a lucky escape as he finished just four minutes before the explosion.

'I'm feeling very fortunate and lucky,' he told Newstalk.

'I feel very sorry for the people who were 400 to 500 metres behind me. It was chaos down there.'

Mr Hillard said it had been an absolutely perfect day.

'I stopped to take in the straight and enjoy it because the last two times I ran Boston I had bad days out and I wanted to enjoy it,' he added.

'I just thank God I didn't stop for another couple of minutes because if I did I'd be smack bang in the middle of all that,' he said.

British athlete Paula Radcliffe, the women's marathon world record holder, posted on Twitter: 'Situation looks awful, thoughts with everyone. There are some very sick people out there, who would do something like this?'



British athlete and women's marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe blamed the bombs on 'sick people'

Chris Bird, chief executive of Sports Tours International, which organised for 51 people to go to the Boston Marathon - 40 runners and 11 non-runners - said all were accounted for.

'We spoke to every single one, the team back at the office, in the incident room, spoke to families and to runners that we could get hold of and our team on the ground in Boston spoke to everybody and checked them all into the hotel,' he told BBC Breakfast.

'Thankfully everybody is safe.'

Some runners travelling with his company completed the race, but most had been been pulled off the course to safety after the blasts took place, he said.

'They were pulled off the course and were really just pulled away from any area of danger or potential danger and needed then to make their own way back to their hotel,' he said.

'Over 300 British people ran the Boston Marathon and the majority will have run for a cause either close to their hearts or close to colleagues or they will be raising money for some sort of good cause.'So it means a lot to everybody and the emotions attached to it are really high. Something like this really focuses the mind on what is really important.'

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