WAKE-UP calls don’t get much more shocking than the one received by John McGrath yesterday morning.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He woke to a message from his running friends Alan and Jenny Buchanan telling of two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
“I’m close friends with Alan and Jenny and we send our results to each other at the conclusion of these marathons,” Mr McGrath said.
“I had a text this morning from Alan to say that he and Jenny had finished in around 3.40 and they’d heard there was a couple of explosions about half an hour after they finished the event and the finish line was now a crime scene.”
While the Buchanans got a message to Mr McGrath before he heard of the attacks, their son Andy was left wondering if his parents were safe.
“I had to take my sister to the train station at 5.30am and we saw it on the news then,” he said.
“We didn’t really know what time it all happened, so that was pretty interesting because there wasn’t that much news about it at that stage.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related coverage: Boston bombings too close for comfort
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An email arrived less than an hour later from his parents and soon after the phone began ringing off the hook from concerned friends and family.
“The phone’s been off tap just calling from relatives and that kind of stuff, everyone always thinks the worst but it’s good to see they’re okay,” Andy said.
Mr McGrath ran the London Marathon with the Buchanans last year and the New York event with them in 2008.
He said there were warnings in New York about terrorism, but not on the scale seen yesterday.
“They were concerned about terrorism, they said not to accept any food or drinks from anyone in the crowd because they were concerned about spiking and that sort of thing,” he said.
“But to the extent of what’s happened in this case, it’s terrible.
“I have friends now in transit to London for the London Marathon (on Sunday) and they will be very apprehensive.”
Mr McGrath competed in the Boston Marathon two years ago and said the area where the bombs exploded was the area of the course with the most spectators.
