This story was reported by Andy Bromage and Kathryn Flagg
Peter Teachout was 100 yards from the finish line at the Boston Marathon when he heard a loud boom, then saw a huge puff of smoke.
“I thought it was a celebratory finish-line gun. Or maybe one of those World War 2 cannons they shoot off to celebrate the finish line,” said Teachout, a Norwich resident and Vermont Law School professor. “We kept on running.”
About 50 yards from the finish, just a few seconds later, the second bomb went off. At that point, Teachout said the runners in front of him turned around and started running toward him in panic. Teachout continued toward the finish — reflexively — until he saw injuried people lying in the roadway.
“They were clearly cut up,” said Teachout, who was not injured in the blasts. “It really was surreal. It was like what you see in videos or films about terrorist attacks.”
Teachout, 72, was one of 100 Vermonters registered in yesterday’s 26.2-mile race. A longtime marathoner who once finished fourth in his age group at Boston, Teachout says he was having a “lousy” race. He lost a month of training owing to a recent surgery. He was on pace to finish somewhere around 4 hours and 8 minutes. Any faster, and Teachout might have been among the three dead and more than 100 injured in the bombings.
“I’m lucky I didn’t run a minute faster,” Teachout said by phone from his daughter’s house in Boston.
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The President of Williston company Summit Technologies, Keith Mattes, was about a half mile away when the blasts happened. He’s been running the last mile of the Boston Marathon since his 12 year old daughter lost her fight w a brain tumor several years ago. He’s safe but said it was very traumatic.