Nurses in Boston have recounted how they held the hands of terrified bombing victims as they wrapped their amputated legs and cleaned shrapnel and nails from their bloody wounds.
A week after the marathon attack, their screams and cries continue to haunt the nurses who put their own fears aside to do their job as they were trained to do, comforting their patients.
'These patients were terrified. They were screaming. They were crying,' said Megann Prevatt, an ER nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, which treated 22 of the 187 victims the first day.
'We had to fight back our own fears, hold their hands as we were wrapping their legs, hold their hands while we were putting IVs in and starting blood on them, just try to reassure them.'
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Horror: Massachusetts General Hospital nurse Jean Acquadra, pictured, talks about the horrific early hours as bloody patients poured in after the explosions at the Boston Marathon
Prevatt recalled how she and other nurses, during their 12-hour shifts, told the patients: 'We don't know what happened, but you're here. You're safe with us.'
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She said: '... I didn't know if there were going to be more bombs exploding. I didn't know how many patients we'd be getting. All these thoughts are racing through your mind.'
Only now are these nurses beginning to come to grips with what they endured and are still enduring as they continue to care for survivors.
They are angry, sad and tired and a few confess they would have trouble caring for the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if he were at their hospital and they were assigned his room.
But they are also thankful, ticking off the list of their hospital colleagues for praise from the security officers who guarded the doors to the ER crews who mopped up trails of blood. The doctors and - especially - the other nurses.
Evidence: Adam Barrett, ICU nurse, pictured left, said he had to share the bedside with investigators as they tried to piece together evidence from wounds. Maria Vareschi, right, also treated victims of the explosions
Haunted: Laura Lux put her fears aside and treated the terrified victims of the explosions
Adam Barrett, ICU nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, recalled to the Associated Press how he shared the patient bedside with investigators searching for clues that might break the case.
'It was kind of hard to hear somebody say, "Don't wash that wound. You might wash evidence away,"' Barrett said.
The brave nurse cleaned shrapnel and nails from the wounds of some victims, side by side with law enforcement investigators who wanted to examine wounds for blast patterns.
The investigator's request took him aback at first.
'I wasn't stopping to think, "What could be in this wound that could give him a lead?"'
A colleague of Barrett's Jean Acquadra said she keeps herself going by thinking of her patients' progress.
'The strength is seeing their faces, their smiles, knowing they're getting better,' she said. 'They may have lost a limb, but they're ready to go on with their lives. They want to live. I don't know how they have the strength, but that's my reward: Knowing they're getting better.'
Boston bombings: a nurses' ordeal
Recovering: Sydney Corcoran, left, whose legs were badly injured in the bomb blast is recovering in the same hospital room as her mother Celeste, right, who lost both legs below the knee
Patients: Victims including Celeste Corcoran, pictured top left, were rushed to hospitals where nurses rushed to help
She is angry and doesn't think she would be able to care for Tsarnaev, if the circumstance presented itself. The terror suspect is a patient at another hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
'I don't have any words for him,' she said.
Christie Majocha, another ICU nurse at Massachusetts General, lives in Watertown, the community paralyzed Friday by the search for the surviving suspect.
'Even going home, I didn't get away from it,' Majocha said.
She helped save the lives of maimed bombing victims on Monday. By week's end, she saw the terror come to her own neighborhood. The manhunt, she felt, was a search for justice, and was being carried out directly for the good of her patients.
'I knew these faces (of the victims). I knew what their families looked like. I saw their tears,' she said. 'I know those families who are so desperate to see this end.'
On Friday night, she joined the throngs cheering the police officers and FBI agents, celebrating late into the night even though she had to return to the hospital at 7 a.m. the next day.