Two Explosin's At Boston Marthon

[roundgunner]

Likely not, as the white smoke would likely indicate industrial chemicals. If i can find it in the morning i'll post a link to the article i read about that.

It looked like black powder to me. I watched it over and over and with the reports of sulfur smell I will guess Black powder not Plastic.

I'm truly surprised we have not been hit hard long ago, like Israel.

God help us, we are not ready for it.

 

[Silver Dollar]

This was inevitable. I'm surprised it took them this long to hit an iconic public event. I was expecting it to be something like the World Series, Superbowl or Rose Bowl or a strike at another iconic place like U of Michigan's stadium, largest in the US.

Thunder Over Louisville and the Kentucky Derby are coming up here in my area. This has me worried to no end since a lot of folks I know attend these iconic events even though I don't.

 

[mkk41]

Non-stop news coverage since it happened , and they haven't told up a thing but a whole lotta nothing!

They have a suspect , they don't have a suspect. 23 dead , 3 dead.

Dirty laundry anyone?
Don Henley - Dirty Laundry (With Lyrics) - YouTube

 

[O2Guy]

Thoughts go out to anyone affected by this.
I just hope that when it's all said and done it's not classified as "workplace violence".

 

[ladder13]

I'll use this for the start of what is going to be a rather lengthy reply.

I have two prefaces to that reply. One is a bit of a scolding, the other is my bona fides so you know I'm not just "some guy" on the Internet, but actually have some experience with this.

The scolding. I'm very taken aback at some of the "Me, Me, Me" comments that I've read here. I expect them on some other forums, but one of the reasons I spent (too) much time here is that the level of maturity is much higher than other internet firearms forums. This attack isn't about gun control or anything else. It's about terrorism. Those are real people who are dead and injured. Let the craven politicians use this as a platform for their goals. We're better than that, when the time comes, we'll counter them. This attack is also about the people who had to respond, and are still responding. Think about them as well in preference to thinking about yourself and the impact on them.

Part two. Bona Fides. I worked for the City of Boston EMS system for 34 years. Since we do the 9-1-1 responses in the city the Marathon is "our" event. It's one of our biggest events of the year, but I'll get to that in a bit. I worked at probably 25 or more Marathons from back when it was a small event up until last year. Many of those years I worked in the main medical tent at the finish line. "Alpha Tent" is what we call it. Planning for that goes on from a few weeks after the previous Marathon up until the days just before it.

We've been training for terrorist attacks since 1997, before most other systems even thought of it. We do drills, classes, more drills, and the Marathon and other events are considered Mass Casualty Incidents, although they are planned events. They are in one respect training events, in another they are a slow motion disaster.

All of which is to say I know the medical response at the Marathon very well. I know the police response a bit less well, but I'm familiar enough with it to offer some observations.

About the police. It's a big day for the Boston Police since most of the spectators are congregated in the 2.8 miles of the route that is in Boston. Everyone works. All of the bomb guys are in, including the dogs. Not just the BPD either. MA State Police, Transit Police, outlying agencies with bomb squads or dogs, federal agencies, the National Guard. Think of a federal agency, they probably have people there. While they may be telling people that it's a drill, they take this very seriously. Still even with all those dogs, someone can carry in a device or devices and that seems to be what happened. Thousands of people lining the route, many of them with back packs or brief cases or something like that.

Now the medical part. This is one of the days that everyone that works for Boston EMS can work if they want. In addition to the 400 bed capacity Alpha Tent, there are other medical tents along the way from the Newton line inward. There are a lot of volunteers staffing some stations, but they are volunteers. They don't have to be there and I'm going to guess that some of them left the tent after the explosion. Not that I blame them, they don't train for this and it's not what they signed up to do.

The Boston EMS people are trained and are paid to be there not only for the runners, but just in case this sort of thing happens. We have all sorts of equipment for handling mass casualties, much of which probably got used to today.

We have a lot of extra ambulances because Marathon day is very, very busy. So, we need extra ambulances. Plus we have bikes, John Deere Gators, and other stuff I won't bore you with.

The Alpha Tent has enough equipment and staff that a lot of the less seriously injured where brought in there, triaged, and treated. Some of the where moved to hospitals, some were likely treated and released from the tent. In a normal year, most of the patients treated in the tent are discharged by a doctor and don't go to the hospital. Same principle.

This no doubt helped with the response as on another day, they would all have gone to hospitals.

Speaking of hospitals, Boston has five Level 1 trauma centers. Most cities don't have any. Some states don't have any. In addition there are a number of none trauma center hospitals that can treat patients that are less severely injured. As a result patients were moved to trauma centers and into Operating Rooms, if needed, in a matter of minutes and not hours.

Keep this in mind as well. Time does not stop when this type of thing happens. In addition to the race, there are the normal 9-1-1 calls coming in that need to be handled. The hospitals are still seeing patients with heart attacks, seizures, car accidents, headaches, and probably a few shootings and stabbings as well.

Finally (I think), pay no attention to the media. They have no idea what's going on. They can look at video and guess what someone is doing, but I can look at that same video and know what they are doing. Hell, I can tell you the names of some of the people that are on TV because I worked with them. The local TV stations are making stuff up and the national networks are just parroting that misinformation. It will be a few days before we know what really happened and who did it. Still, they have air time to fill and laundry detergent to sell, so they have to put something on the air.

Hopefully that gives you folks some insight into what was really happening before, during, and after the Marathon and the attack.

I'm thankful that at least as far as I can tell, none of my friends and former co workers are among the injured.

For the benefit of the moderators, none of what I wrote here is confidential. It might not be common knowledge, but there are a good number of people who could have written this post.

Nice to hear from someone who actually knows of what he speaks Gary, I agree with all you wrote, and thanks for your service to the community.
You guys who work the EMS side of community service are way underpaid imo. I saw many an EMT/Medic get burned out in my time OTJ.
Prayers for those good people up in Boston.

 

[germansheperd]

I feel bad for the 8yr old boy who died he was innocent but you know what, those liberals (Mass is full liberal) want to play games with terrorists and criminals, they are against the death penalty, cry about how murderers/terrorists are treated in gitmo,wanting the gov't to control everything, and want to disarm honest citizens.
Well liberals what you had is a result of what you want and you deal with it. Maybe you can talk,reason,and negotiate with killers.
You wouldve thought the east coast liberals wouldve gotten smart after 911, how the gov't handled hurricane sandy (hey hows that going?). I'll just sit back and watch.

 

[JJEH]

Press conference at 0930h ET.

 

[Thuer]

I did hear this terrible news on my job. I am shocked. My toughts are by all the needless victims off this ill act.
You have to be very sick in your mind to do this.

I wish America strenght.

 

[MaximumLawman]

Thunder Over Louisville and the Kentucky Derby are coming up here in my area. This has me worried to no end since a lot of folks I know attend these iconic events even though I don't.

I'm sure the Derby has been the subject of various preparedness exercises by law enforcement. Same with other stadium-based scenarios. But there's only so much you can do to prepare for this sort of thing in a country with the freedoms that we enjoy. Does the fact that there have been no claims of responsibility yet suggest that this was not the work of Islamic extremists? Typically (one of) their motives for attacking are to provoke a US military response with the ultimate goal of uniting more Muslims against the West. That doesn't seem to have happened yet.

 

[MaximumLawman]

You're memory is faulty. The AWB and magazine ban were reactions to two events. The first was the 1989 Stockton School Yard shootings. The second was the 1994 Long Island Rail Road shootings.

While that might have been attached to some other bill, that was merely legislative sleight of hand, those two shootings were the direct causes of the laws that were eventually passed.

I didn't mean to suggest it was a result of the bombing, but rather that it was was attached to the "Violent Crime Control" act. In addition to the assault weapons banThe act also provided for the death penalty for terrorism. I suspect that part was directly a result of the first WTC bombing. So I believe it is not far fetched to believe that this event will also be taken advantage of for similar legislative maneuvering. The VCCA was the biggest legislative bill in history at the time. Would it be beyond our president to try something similar?

I sorta feel sorry for the Saudi guy. "There's an Arab with a satchel charge! Grab him!" Or was there more to it than that?

 

[GaryS]

I didn't mean to suggest it was a result of the bombing, but rather that it was was attached to the "Violent Crime Control" act. In addition to the assault weapons banThe act also provided for the death penalty for terrorism. I suspect that part was directly a result of the first WTC bombing. So I believe it is not far fetched to believe that this event will also be taken advantage of for similar legislative maneuvering. The VCCA was the biggest legislative bill in history at the time. Would it be beyond our president to try something similar?

Understood, but I don't see more legislation coming out of this. Maybe the President can tell us that we need to ban something else, though.

I sorta feel sorry for the Saudi guy. "There's an Arab with a satchel charge! Grab him!" Or was there more to it than that?

From the press conference that they just had I got two bits of information.

1) The two bombs that detonated were the only bombs round. All other suspicious packages turned out to be nothing.

2) No suspects, Saudi or otherwise, in custody. The police/FBI/ATF and everyone else did search an apartment in one of the northern suburbs of Boston. I'm not sure if it belonged to the Saudi guy that everyone is talking about. No mention of him or the search at the press conference.

 

[TAROMAN]

Just heard a well-informed newscaster report that the bombs were likely home made, from SMOKELESS BLACK POWDER.

Maybe the terrorist (can I use that word?) had a stock of the old Lesmok Seni-Smokeless.

 

[Xtasy]

I sorta feel sorry for the Saudi guy. "There's an Arab with a satchel charge! Grab him!" Or was there more to it than that?

Nope he has already been released but not after the medias were spewing his name out all of the place...
The medias should be held accountable for any damages done related to releasing the name of a suspect without any facts and on pure suspicious.

Just imagine your name would be released as a suspect in a rape even though you had absolutely nothing to do with it. For what? Just because the medias wanted to push their numbers and make sure that they were the first one having a name...

 

[GaryS]

Just imagine your name would be released as a suspect in a rape even though you had absolutely nothing to do with it. For what? Just because the medias wanted to push their numbers and make sure that they were the first one having a name...

It's happened more than once. I know of one guy who was later exonerated who killed himself because of it. Other people who have been acquitted have still lost their jobs.

I'd say that irresponsible "reporters" have caused much more harm than irresponsible gun owners over the years.

 

[MaximumLawman]

Nope he has already been released but not after the medias were spewing his name out all of the place...
The medias should be held accountable for any damages done related to releasing the name of a suspect without any facts and on pure suspicious.

Just imagine your name would be released as a suspect in a rape even though you had absolutely nothing to do with it. For what? Just because the medias wanted to push their numbers and make sure that they were the first one having a name...

I wonder what the cops used for probable cause? How would you like to be in that position? You come across a bunch of well-meaning patriots on patriot day who say they got the bomber. Why? "Well....uh....we saw him running away from the scene with a backpack" (like 500 other people with backpacks were doing). Do you arrest the guy based on nothing? Do you let him go and have these people run to the press and say "We caught the bomber but the cops let him go!"

Look what they put poor Richard Jewel through after the Olympic bombings. Wonder how much dough he got?

 

[A10]

I was wrong

It looks like initial information was wrong. Based on the fact no one has claimed responsibility, and there were no additional explosive devices, I'll admit I was wrong. That works out to about 10 cents apiece. Please send me your bank account information so I can deposit it directly

 

[venomballistics]

Just heard a well-informed newscaster report that the bombs were likely home made, from SMOKELESS BLACK POWDER.

Maybe the terrorist (can I use that word?) had a stock of the old Lesmok Seni-Smokeless.

Show of hand or show of IQ ... DiFi is licking her chops looking at reloading supplies

 

[GaryS]

Thanks to everyone for all the Likes on this post. I posted this to try to bring some clarity to what happened down there, I guess I succeeded.

I would also like to correct an omission from my post. While Boston EMS was the lead medical agency at this incident, we get and got a lot of assistance from private ambulance services as well. Since Boston has so many hospitals, there are literally hundreds of private ambulances coming in and going out of the city on a normal day. The private services always provide some units for the Marathon and other events, but I'm sure that yesterday they sent every unit that they could spare. Their primary job is usually moving patients from facility to facility, that's how they make money. I'm sure that they delayed or canceled some other business to help out when disaster struck.

 

[MaximumLawman]

It looks like initial information was wrong. Based on the fact no one has claimed responsibility, and there were no additional explosive devices, I'll admit I was wrong. That works out to about 10 cents apiece. Please send me your bank account information so I can deposit it directly

You're not necessarily wrong yet. OBL didn't take credit for 911 until 2 weeks later. Just because this bomb probably didn't use high explosives, and the first Arab they grabbed wasn't involved, and nobody has taken credit yet and Pakistani al-Quada says "It wasn't us" doesn't necessarily mean it was "home-grown" terrorism, although I sure wouldn't rule that out either. We don't even have enough now for educated guesses let alone conclusions at this point.

With the number of video cameras everywhere these days, I wouldn't be surprised if they had video of the responsible parties planting the explosives sometime after the last garbage pickup.

 

[Rule3]

Have not read the whole thread but just saw on internet news the device was a pressure cooker, not to make light of this terrible event but that means regulation on those cooking devices.

My Niece and her child live in Boston and where there 1 block away!