Boston blasts: Runner tells of how he missed bombs by just minutes

A Bermuda runner passed the finish line little more than four minutes before a double bomb blast rocked the Boston Marathon.

Trevor Brookes said he was just about to collect his medal when a bomb exploded just 250m from where he was standing.

He said: “We couldn’t see what was happening — the strange thing is we just didn’t understand what was going on.

“People were saying ‘keep moving, keep moving’ as if more runners were coming in behind us, which they weren’t.”

He added that it wasn’t until he got back to his hotel half-an-hour later that he realized that the finish line had been targeted in a terrorist attack and that his wife Karla and son Matthew had been on the opposite side of the road from the blasts and escaped injury. And he saw from the clock as the bombs went off that he had passed the explosive devices packed with shrapnel just four minutes and 14 seconds before detonation.

Mr Brookes, 48, from Pembroke, an accountant at Partner Re, added that the position of the bombs meant spectators suffered from the blasts more than runners.

He said: “The spectators were more at risk than the athletes.”

He added his wife and seven-year-old son had seen him cross the line, although he had not spotted them.

Mr Brookes said: “They were relieved to see me and I was relieved to see them. I didn’t know where they were — I didn’t know if they were on the good side of the street or the bad side.”

Competitor Claire De Ste Croix, 48, from Devonshire, was just a block away from the scene when the bombs went off and crossed the line around ten minutes before the first bomb exploded.

She said: “My heart goes out to all the families who are suffering — it’s a very sad day.”

Rose-Anna Hoey, 31, from Warwick, an occupational therapist at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, passed the finish line more than an hour before the bombs went off.

She said: “We are praying for the injured.”

 She told friends on Monday through Facebook that she was uninjured. She told the Bermuda Sun that the cellphone system in Boston had shut down completely, leaving people in the city centre unable to contact loved ones.