Boston bombing event holds lessons for all

There is the fact that survivors saw what harm was caused by two people but they also saw what goodness is within more people. Total strangers rushed to help risking their own lives. One bomb blew up and they must have been aware another one could blow up too but they didn't think about themselves. Even when the second bomb blew up, more rushed to help the wounded. That goes a long way toward healing but so does the fact so many veterans have shown up at the hospitals to encourage the patients trying to recover from missing limbs and wounds that will leave scars for the rest of their lives.

The thing people always tend to overlook is how important it is to know someone gives a damn about you. The attack sites have been paved over now and the earth has been healed. The people will heal too with a lot of care. The witnesses will need care but I think the strangers that rushed to help may need a bit more.

Impact of terrorist attack varies from other tragedies
April 22, 2013
By TARA BAIRD, USC School of Journalism


Pascoe: Miranda warning not needed for suspect

At 2:50 p.m. Monday, Boston held a moment of silence to remember the victims of last week’s bombings. Read more

COLUMBIA -- Natural disasters are devastating.

Tragedies caused by man are a different kind of pain.

“There is a fundamental difference between natural events and terrorist events,” said Susan Cutter, a geography professor at the University of South Carolina.

“In most instances, you kind of know if you’re living in an area that’s prone to the forces of nature,” she said. Terrorism, on the other hand, is not anticipated.

Cutter, who is also the director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at USC, has conducted field studies on similar events, such as Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

“Terrorism. It can happen any time, anywhere to anyone,” she said.
read more here

This also offers a lesson in judging others. Many employers are reluctant when it comes to hiring veterans because they are afraid of PTSD. While there is no need to fear any of them, the fact is, people do. This is a good time to point out that while employers may know a veteran has come back from combat, they never know what else other people experienced in their own lives.

Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and phobias (social phobia, agoraphobia, and specific phobia).

Approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder.

1,2
Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders or substance abuse.1 Most people with one anxiety disorder also have another anxiety disorder. Nearly three-quarters of those with an anxiety disorder will have their first episode by age 21.5

Some of the people in Boston during the bombings will end up with PTSD but no one think twice about hiring them. It just won't be an issue. So how is it an issue when it comes to hiring veterans? A lot of the people rushing to help, risking their lives for the wounded were in fact veterans. Kind of makes you stop and think about judging anyone doesn't it?

Marine's experience can inspire Boston runners

The Unknown Soldiers: Marine's experience can inspire Boston runners
Jackson Sun News
Written by Tome Sileo
Apr 19, 2013

After Cpl. Jake Hill stepped on an improvised explosive device during a chaotic battle in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, the young Marine radioed his squad leader.

“This is Hill,” he said. “I just stepped on an IED, but I’m fine.”

U.S. Marine Cpl. Jake Hill's left leg was amputated just above the knee after he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan on Sept. 16, 2010. He has since run the Marine Corps Marathon and been awarded the Silver Star for bravery in combat. Image courtesy of the website Ossur.

Through a dizzying haze of dust, smoke and ongoing gunfire, the Rapid City, S.D., native looked down at his feet.

“What I saw was a really badly broken left ankle,” Cpl. Hill told The Unknown Soldiers. “I was like ‘OK, this is fine, people break their ankles all the time.’”

Hill was later shocked when a doctor presented him with two difficult choices: replace his shattered foot with a cadaver bone or amputate his left leg just above the knee.

As soon as members of his patrol were hit, Hill, who was serving with Company L of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, took it upon himself to tend to the wounded.

“With one of his team members injured by a rocket-propelled grenade, (Hill) exposed himself to enemy fire a second time and ran to aid his Marine brother,” a Marine Corps citation said. “He applied first-aid and led the rest of his team through 200 meters of fire-swept terrain to extract the casualty.”

Like so many combat veterans I’ve spoken with, Hill skipped over his gallantry during our interview. He is too humble to take credit for his courageous, life-saving actions.

“Three or four days after my injury, my platoon commander told me that he was going to be putting me up for an award,” Hill, now 22, said. “I said ‘no, I don’t want it.’”
read more here

Combat veterans visit double amputee Boston survivor

UPDATE from NPR May 3, 2013
From Battlefield To Boston: Marine Comforts Bombing Survivors
UPDATE
Capt. Cameron West was interviewed on The Last Word by Lawrence O'Donnell

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Double Amputee Marine Brings Words Of Hope To Boston Marathon Bombing Survivors
(VIDEO)
Huff Post
Posted: 04/22/2013

During a recent hospital visit with two survivors of the Boston Marathon tragedy, a Marine who lost both his legs in combat shared a powerful, inspiring message of hope.

"There are so many opportunities that are going to come your way," the unnamed Marine, who uses prosthetic limbs and is said to be a paralympian, told Celeste Corcoran and her 17-year-old daughter, Sydney, as they lay recovering together at Boston Medical Center. "This isn't the end, this is the beginning."

Celeste, 47, had been standing with Sydney at the marathon finish line last week when one of two bombs exploded, severely wounding both of them. Celeste's legs were amputated below the knee, and Sydney suffered near-fatal shrapnel wounds.

“I can’t do anything right now,” Celeste told the Marine from her hospital bed on Sunday, her legs still heavily bandaged.

“Right now, yes. But I’m telling you right now you are going to be more independent,” he replied.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the visit from the injured Marine and his words of encouragement brought comfort to the resilient mother-daughter duo. “They had a good day today,” Sydney's uncle, Tim Corcoran, told the newspaper. “Celeste was encouraged.”
read more here
Veterans from Semper Fi inspire Boston wounded

Veterans from Semper Fi inspire Boston bomb survivors

Bombing Victims Start Rehab, Meet Amputee Veterans
Bloomberg News
By Shannon Pettypiece and Drew Armstrong
April 22, 2013

Patients who lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombings started using walkers to move around Boston Medical Center, met with amputee veterans and began to prepare for prosthetic legs.

The hospital treated 23 patients following the explosions, five of whom have undergone amputations involving multiple surgeries, said Jeffrey Kalish, Boston Medical’s director of endovascular surgery at a press conference today. About half remain at the center, including one in critical condition, said Peter Burke, chief of trauma services.

Boston Medical was one of five trauma centers that handled the worst cases following the blasts, which killed three people and injured more than 175 as nails, pellets, wood and other debris exploded from two bombs. The physical and emotional recovery may take many more months though doctors said they are encouraged by the early progress.

“We have definitely seen every range of emotion this past week,” Kalish said. “For us, we have seen amazing improvements, really great attitudes. We’ve had veterans come in with amputations that have walked through the halls and shown these patients their life isn’t over.”

Soldiers from the Semper Fi Fund, a veterans group for injured military personnel, came to Boston to meet with about a dozen patients and their families at four different hospitals. They told them about the importance of getting active as soon as possible and setting goals to aim for. The group said they plan to be back at the end of the week.

The Semper Fi Fund has raised $74 million over the last decade, and has now set up a Boston Marathon fund for those hurt in the blast. The group helps modify the environment of the injured to help them stay mobile and active, as well as providing support in getting prosthetics and services. They also have a team of athletes, including B.J. Ganem, 36, a Marine veteran who lost one of his legs in Iraq in 2004.
read more here

1st sgt., fellow Guardsmen aid injured at Boston tragedy

1st sgt., fellow Guardsmen aid injured at Boston tragedy
Apr. 20, 2013
QArmy Times
By Meghann Myers
Staff writer

First Sgt. Bernard Madore spent most of the Boston Marathon doing what first sergeants do: keeping his men on track, joking around, playfully shouting at the other runners to “get up the hill!”

The fun came to an abrupt end the afternoon of April 15, when two explosive devices went off near the finish line, killing three and injuring more than 180. That’s when Madore’s training kicked in.

“I started looking up and around as soon as it went off to see where’s it going?” Madore told Army Times. “And then there was a secondary bomb, so we paused to look around, because you don’t know if somebody’s going to start shooting or what.”

Madore and several other soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard’s 1,060th Transportation Company had ruck-marched the 26.2-mile race to raise money for the nonprofit Military Friends Foundation. They were waiting in a medical tent for the last members of their group to catch up when the first blast went off around the corner.

The men rushed toward the scene and immediately began helping first-responders tear down a barricade that separated spectators from the marathon route. When the uninjured were freed, it was on to the next step.
read more here

Making peace after trauma comes with knowing the different types

Making peace after trauma comes with knowing the different types
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
April 21, 2013

It does not just happen. It does not take time to heal all wounds. It takes a lot of work but what has happened after men and women are out of combat zones proves what does not work. "Resilience" during combat is one thing but expecting it to work on preventing PTSD is a deadly notion.

I was reading this article about "Mindfullness"

"New study from University of Michigan, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System shows group mindfulness activities have positive effect on PTSD symptoms."

First, it is not new in the world of psychiatry but it may be new to University of Michigan. Part of PTSD is the loss of ability to calm down. The function of the human body has been compromised by the constant stress of combat, multiple traumas topped off with the treat of them happening again. In other words, the body learned how to survive on "alert" and it needs to learn how to calm down again. 

It claims that,

"After eight weeks of treatment, 73 percent of patients in the mindfulness group displayed meaningful improvement compared to 33 percent in the treatment-as-usual groups."

Sounds great but any help can make people feel better when it comes to PTSD because as soon as they start talking about it, it stops getting worse. What this study does not address is the longterm.

There are three components to healing. One is the mind and that requires a trauma specialist to respond right after "it" hits the "fan" and then the event is not allowed to take over. This does not have to be a "professional" but can be done with someone trained to respond the right way. Someone who will not dismiss or minimize what the serviceman or woman is experiencing. Someone who is trained to stay away from the wrong choice of words. I've actually heard people try to "fix" someone by saying "God only gives us what we can handle." That ends up enforcing what they already think. People walk away from trauma either believing they are one lucky SOB or they just got nailed by God. God either saved them or did it to them. If they believe God did it to them, then bingo, they just heard they were right and God gave it to them. I have also heard well trained crisis responders do it to perfection. They listened right, saying very little and with compassion. They focused on the person they were helping. Not taking phone calls, checking their watch or looking around the room as if they had something better to do.

If that doesn't happen then you need to have a mental health professional but even that is an issue if they are not trauma specialists. Otherwise they get it wrong too. Psychiatrists and psychologist come with the same issues. If they are not experts on what trauma does, they get it wrong. If they are not specialists there is also the issue of many not believing PTSD is real even though brain scans have shown the changes in the brain. Some of them know so little all they offer is medication as if "they have a pill for that" is the answer to everything. Medication numbs. It does not heal. There is also the issue of many medications coming with a warning they could increase suicidal thoughts being prescribed. The right ones can work to calm things down enough so the other part of treatment can start to work.

The body is the second part that needs to be treated. Everything is being drained by flashbacks, nightmares following a year of being constantly on edge. The body has to relearn soothing and calming down. There are many ways to get there. Yoga, meditation, martial arts, writing, swimming, walking and playing a musical instrument help with that as long as they can train themselves to focus on what they are doing and not the negative thing that happened to them. If they start to think of the events they survived, they need to push it out and think of what they are doing.

The other, and I think the most important part of healing, is spiritual. Forgiving. Knowing they are forgiven for whatever they feel they need to be forgiven for and forgiving whomever they have to forgive. That is not up to anyone to judge or dismiss. It is the only way they being to make peace with what happened. With combat and a close cousin law enforcement, it is not just surviving the event. Often it is participating in it with the use of weapons.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about being confused over something I said about this. It is a good time to clarify. There are different causes of PTSD but all are being diagnosed and treated the same way. They treat someone surviving a hurricane (one time event) the same way they treat a rape victim even though a hurricane always comes with a warning but rape does not. The threat of something happening again or not is part of what has to happen in therapy. Something that happens in a natural disaster is not man made. Rape is. It is done to the person by another person's actions. Worrying about it happening again is part of what PTSD does. Then the human issue of forgiving comes into it. Forgiving their attacker while seeking justice is tricky. It requires a lot of work to do that but once it is done, life gets better not carrying that burden on top of everything else.

Abuse is another one especially when you live with the person. For me it was my Dad, a violent alcoholic until I was 13. Then my ex-husband tried to kill me. Huge difference between what nature does and what people do.

They treat someone with PTSD after a car accident the same way as the other three even though the threat to them is the repeated every time they get into a vehicle. Again it is the human factor of someone causing the trauma or worse, when they caused it.

Firefighters are another different group. They put their lives on the line everyday and when they are not rushing to a fire, they are waiting for it. They don't know when the next alarm bell will ring. The friend I talked to yesterday is involved with firefighters. He told me that some of them are armed when we were talking about how cops and military folks use weapons. (That is something we can explore later as I learn more about that aspect.) For the average firefighter, again, there is a huge difference between the type of PTSD they get hit with because of the nature of the trauma, the threat to their lives and concern for facing it all over again. There is survivor guilt when they couldn't save someone or when one of their friends die in the line of duty.

We are all talking about the bombs in Boston last week and people seeking things no one should have to see because other humans decided to do it and others decided to help afterwards. They will have a lot to deal with on a whole different level. It is close to what firefighters/first responders face on a daily basis. Lives on the line and seeing things no one should have to see but they know someone has to do it.

Then you have police officers and the troops. Cops know the risk every time they clock in but they get to go home at the end of their shift. The troops don't while they are deployed into combat zones. The troops get to go back to the states away from combat, but cops have to get up and do it all over again everyday. (Getting how complicated all this is yet?) Both groups have to use force and become part of the event itself. The nature of the trauma is much different for them from the other groups and they have to be treated differently.

Then you also have the secondary stressor. I had a DEA agent years ago contact me because he was worried about losing his security clearance. He was a combat veteran and had been through a lot working on both jobs yet it was not until his younger brother was killed in Iraq that it hit him like a ton of bricks. What he discovered was he was pushing past mild PTSD and not addressing it. He was not ready when he was hit by the event that was the thing to wake up sleeping PTSD.

That is something that is happening right now after the bombings in Boston. People will react differently when they go out in public and need help right now. The victims will need a different kind of help. For the responders, they will need help too. Yet if they are treated the same way, then they will need a lot more help then they would have if they are treated properly right now.

There are experts who are not experts in trauma, but there are experts in trauma that I learned from over all these years. They are out there and those are the people who should be running the studies like the one you just read about. They are the ones who should be listened to if we are ever going to get any of this right. If we keep listening to the ones doing the talking most of the last 40 years, the ones getting the attention and funding, then we are all screwed.

They say take care of all parts of the survivors of trauma with their minds, bodies and spirits and then you have healing. Otherwise we have the history of PTSD being repeated.

Troops in Kandahar send message to Boston, stand strong

A Dark Day in Boston Resembles Too Many in Afghanistan
April 19th, 2013
by Capt. Thomas L. Dickens

"Our message to the people of Boston must be consistent with that we send to the people of Afghanistan: stand strong."

Last week, word quickly spread through Regional Command South in Kandahar of the horrific attacks that took place during the Boston Marathon. Major General Robert Abrams, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, promptly ordered that flags be flown at half-staff in honor of the fallen. And while we were thousands of miles away, our hearts were with and continue to be with the victims of this act of terror and their families.

These acts of terrorism bring about a feeling of familiarity for those of us serving in Afghanistan. First, it was an act of terror on American soil that opened the door to our engagement in South Asia. And while the number of casualties from 9/11 was much greater than last week, their similarities lie in that they both brought with them the immense feelings of fear that are meant to paralyze our lives.

The second parallel with the Boston bombing is that we unfortunately are seeing similar attacks on a regular basis in Afghanistan. We now know that the attacks in Boston were the result of two homemade improvised explosive devices (IEDs) made with pressure cookers and commonly found items such as ball bearings, BB s and everyday hardware like nails. These cheaply made weapons are highly effective in that they inflict terror by tearing through flesh and creating unfathomable damage to their victims. IEDs are the weapon of choice for al Qaeda cells as well as local insurgents who wish to stop the democratization of Afghanistan.
read more here

Oklahoma City bombing parent reaches out to Boston

“It wasn’t your fault”
APR 19, 2013
Salon.com

I know the unfathomable grief that Martin Richard's parents must be feeling. I lost my daughter to a bomb, too
BY KATHLEEN ANIOL TREANOR

I haven’t been able to watch footage of Boston. When it comes on TV, I can watch a little bit, but then I have to walk away. The picture of Martin Richard, the little boy who died, brings tears to my eyes, because I know what his parents are going through. I lost my 4-year-old daughter, Ashley, in the Oklahoma City bombings, along with my husband’s parents, LaRue and Luther. Eighteen years later, I’m still living with the trauma. The trauma never goes away.

I was at work when the bomb went off. Everything on my desk shifted. In my naiveté, I wondered: Did one of the silos blow up? We turned on the news, and saw the chaos, the building torn away. I thought, “Thank God no one I love is in that building.”

My husband’s parents were taking care of Ashley that day. My husband’s father had an appointment at the Social Security Building at 9 o’clock, which I didn’t realize was in the federal building. When it finally sunk in what was happening, I collapsed in on myself. It’s a very hopeless feeling, not knowing.

We spent days looking for her, sitting in hospitals and churches, watching and waiting. I kept thinking, she’s just lost. She’s a little girl. Someone has her, and they don’t know where to take her. But eventually we realized there was no hope of finding her. It was inevitable that she was gone. That they were all gone. It was Wednesday when they finally called us to say they had her body. A few months later, I received a call after she was buried that they had found her hand. We put it in a little urn, and we buried it with her.
read more here

War veteran doctor experience vital

War veteran doctor experience vital
By GRETYL MACALASTER
Union Leader Correspondent
April 19. 2013

Dr. Fred Brennan with Seacoast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Somersworth and head team doctor for the University of New Hampshire hugs his daughter, Alyssa, 18, after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, where Brennan was serving as a volunteer in medical tent B, two blocks from the finish line. (COURTESY)

SOMERSWORTH - As a member of the New Hampshire Air National Guard, and a veteran of foreign wars, Dr. Fred Brennan knew there was always a chance he would again be exposed to casualties. But he never expected to see them on the streets of Boston.

Brennan, a doctor with Seacoast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine and the team doctor for the University of New Hampshire athletic program, was helping to lead the medical team in tent B at the Boston Marathon on Monday, just two short blocks from the finish line.

About 200 doctors, nurses, athletic trainers, sports medicine practitioners and other medical staff were treating a nearly full tent of runners with blisters, cramps, and some hypothermia due to the day's cold temperatures when the first bomb went off.

Brennan immediately recognized the sound of an improvised explosive device, and when he heard the second blast, he knew it was no accident. He told his team to get ready.
read more here

THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR on Kindle

THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR is available on Kindle, finally!

April 18, 2013 Military and veteran suicides are higher even though billions are spent every year trying to prevent them. After years of research most can be connected to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD has been researched for 40 years yet most of what was known has been forgotten. Families are left blaming themselves for what they were never told.

Reporters have failed to research. Congress failed at holding people accountable. The military failed at giving them the help they need. We failed to pay attention.

There are several things to think about right now. The first one is the bombings in Boston have set off mild PTSD into full-blown. Most of the OEF and OIF veterans were not prepared for what a secondary stressor could do to them.

Second Marathon bombing suspect captured yesterday was not the end of the story for them. Brigham and Women's Hospital is where the bomber has been taken after being wounded. So were many of his victims.

War medicine now is helping Boston bomb victims
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
By:Associated Press

The bombs that made Boston look like a combat zone have also brought battlefield medicine to their civilian victims. A decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has sharpened skills and scalpels, leading to dramatic advances that are now being used to treat the 13 amputees and nearly a dozen other patients still fighting to keep damaged limbs.

"The only field or occupation that benefits from war is medicine," said Dr. David Cifu, rehabilitation medicine chief at the Veterans Health Administration.

Nearly 2,000 American troops have lost a leg, arm, foot or hand in Iraq or Afghanistan, and their sacrifices have led to advances in the immediate and long-term care of survivors, as well in the quality of prosthetics that are now so good that surgeons often chose them over trying to save a badly mangled leg.

Tourniquets, shunned during the Vietnam War, made a comeback in Iraq as medical personnel learned to use them properly and studies proved that they saved lives. In Boston, as on the battlefield, they did just that by preventing people from bleeding to death.

Military doctors learned and passed on to their civilian counterparts a surgical strategy of a minimal initial operation to stabilize the patient, followed by more definitive ones days later, an approach that experience showed offered the best chance to preserve tissue from large and complex leg wounds.

Many of the National Guardsmen were there helping the wounded and had also seen what happened in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. Many of the police officers and firefighters along with emergency responders also knew the horrific wounds of war. The last thing they thought was that it could happen in their hometown.

After the massacre at Fort Hood was something the soldiers did not expect to happen in their "hometown" where they lived with their families, went shopping and to school.

It happened after September 11th 2001 when people decided to kill as many as possible. The veterans didn't expect it to happen here.

As bad as it is that none of them were prepared for the secondary stressor of the bombings in Boston, we should have learned by what happened before, but we didn't.

We should have learned what happens to veterans when they came home from Vietnam because after all, they are the ones that pushed for research and treatment. They are the reason we have psychologist, mental health professionals and crisis intervention responders.

We should have learned what happens to them after battlefield technology saved the lives of the wounded citizens we take care of in hospitals around the world, but we didn't.

If you want to know why we didn't learn from the past, it is in THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR. It isn't just about who took their own lives but about why. It isn't just heartbreaking stories from families, but stories from newspapers around the country that tell what else was going on so you will be just as infuriated as I am.

It is also about what we can do for them right now. If we don't, we will lose more.

Boston wheelchair winner to help the wounded

Boston wheelchair winner to help the wounded
By ROB HARRIS
AP Sports Writer
April 19, 2013

LONDON (AP) — Tatyana McFadden's thrill at winning her first Boston Marathon wheelchair title didn't last long.

Shortly after leaving the Boston streets to prepare for a night of celebrations, McFadden's family informed her of the bombings near the finish line that killed three people and injured more than 180.

"They had this glazed look on their faces and it was like, 'What happened, what is going on?'" she said Friday. "And they said two explosions had gone off. ... We were watching the replay over and over and over and over and over. That was just the toughest part to see, the mad chaos, people running, people were injured."

Along with five teammates, McFadden scrambled out of Boston onto a flight to her Baltimore home.
Read more

After trauma, you can win

It is very important to point out that resilience is part of you or it is not. You cannot train or learn to become resilient.

"But how resilient people are can help determine how quickly they bounce back.

What's resilience? It's when people aren't afraid to share their emotions so they don't become overwhelmed — and when they try to look for a silver lining, like focusing on how many bystanders helped the wounded, rather than dwelling on gruesome memories."

There is a huge difference between having that ability and not having it. I am an example of having it only because of my life and getting help to heal after each time I faced death. I am not a veteran, as I point out all the time. I have just had my life on the line many times from early childhood. The difference, the only one I can see, is that my family was always there and talked everything to death.

I come from a large "Greek" family. Much like the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" the whole extended family was involved in everything and there were no secrets. Sometimes they gave the wrong advice, but they were always there to listen until I was done talking. Every dangerous experience was subdued surrounded by loving family members. Being resilient is not being perfect. There are times when I actually got to the breaking point and once I prayed very hard to die. I get depressed. I have to fight off thinking negatively. I have to remind myself of all the times something happened and I am still standing. In other words, when "it" didn't win.

It does not have to win now for you either.

Talk about what you went through, how you felt and what you were thinking at the time. When you start to be able to talk about it without feeling your insides change when you do, then you are healing from it. Every part of you experienced the event. Your muscles. Your heart rate. It all goes with it so it is important to do this and get it all out in the open in a safe place.

These videos are a few years old but while time has changed the nature of PTSD has not.

Psychological aftershocks are invisible wounds of disaster but most people recover with time
Published April 18, 2013
Associated Press

BOSTON – Anger. Crying jags. Nightmares. They're all normal reactions for survivors of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, and witnesses to the mayhem.

Kaitlyn Greeley burst into tears when a car backfired the other day. She's afraid to take her usual train to work at a Boston hospital.

"I know this is how people live every day in other countries. But I'm not used to it here," said Greeley, 27, a technician at Tufts Medical Center who was on duty Monday when part of the hospital was briefly evacuated even as victims of the blast were being treated.

Those psychological aftershocks are the often invisible wounds of disaster. Most affected are the injured and those closest to the blasts. But even people with no physical injuries and those like Greeley who weren't nearby can feel the emotional impact for weeks as they struggle to regain a sense of security. What's not clear is who will go on to suffer lingering anxiety or depression, even post-traumatic stress disorder.

Seek help if those reactions are bad enough to impair function, or if they're not getting better in about a month, said Priscilla Dass-Brailsford, a psychologist at Georgetown University Medical Center, who served on disaster mental health teams that counseled survivors of 9/11 in New York and Hurricane Katrina. read more here

Hero After War is about combat and PTSD but there are many things that can help others.

This can help you understand too.



Get help before your mind changes. The best time to begin to heal is now. If you have been suffering for a long time, there are things that you can do that can make your life better and what cannot be healed, you can find peace to live with.

Distressed Army vet missing since watching Boston bombings on TV

Distressed Army vet missing since watching Boston bombings on TV
by Stacia Willson
KENS 5
Posted on April 18, 2013

SAN ANTONIO -- A man who was seeking help for post traumatic stress disorder has gone missing from his family after watching footage of the Boston Marathon bombings.

On Monday, the Rory Lester, Jr. and his aunt were visiting a friend at San Antonio Methodist Hospital when they saw the report on TV. The 28-year-old Army veteran asked his aunt for her car keys so he could go outside and cool down.
read more here

Goodness did not yield to evil on Patriot's Day

I am from the Boston area and I have to tell you that I have never been prouder of my home state and to say, "I am a Bostonian!" (If you hear me talk, that will be obvious.) President Obama in in Boston right now talking about how so many people rushed to help the wounded, doing whatever they could to help even if it was just to comfort with a hand on a shoulder.

That is the strength of my "neighbors" because they refuse to yield to evil.

Whenever they do good no matter what was done to them, there is evidence of God. Whenever they are more worried about someone else, again, evidence of God shines through.

You've read about some of the heroes over the last few days but there will be even more because they are already raising funds for the wounded. Many of them have lost limbs. Some of them may never work again. This the people of Boston understand. This the people of Boston will never forget. As the media goes back to covering other stories, like what happened in Texas last night, the people of Boston will be standing up for the people harmed by evil but not destroyed by it.

They will recover. It was Patriot's Day and Bostonians didn't yield to the fight from freedom so long ago. Now they will remember the day when they once again said they will overcome what is wrong by doing what is right!

Combat-medicine lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan applied to Boston

Combat-medicine lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan applied to Boston Marathon wounded
BOSTON (SHNS)
April 16, 2013

Improvised explosive devices caused carnage on the street of an American city this week, but after more than a decade of grim experience treating U.S. troops maimed by such weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the emergency workers and volunteers along Boston's Boylston Street knew how to react.

They included nurses and medics who had served as National Guardsmen trained in front-line first aid, and a peace activist, Carlos Arredondo, who had lost his Marine son, Alexander, in Iraq in 2004.

"You can see (the bomb) was like an IED,'' he said, sweeping his arm low to the ground where the shrapnel flew as he spoke to reporters soon after helping to evacuate a man with two severed legs to an ambulance.

Civilian trauma experts say the insights gained from keeping severely wounded troops alive have quickly taken hold in civilian emergency departments and ambulances across the U.S. Many of them are convinced that lessons from military medicine are a major reason why more civilians are surviving gunshot injuries in the U.S., even as the total number of shootings has been increasing, according to figures kept by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now, the expertise has shifted to bystanders at a footrace hit by bombs, the Boston Marathon.
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Father of Camp Pendleton Marine hailed as hero in Boston Marathon bombings

If you do not know who Carlos Arredondo is, when he learned his son had been killed in Iraq, he set fire to his truck. He became an advocate for ending the occupation of Iraq. He was also attacked for his efforts.

Father of Camp Pendleton Marine hailed as hero in Boston Marathon bombings
Carlos Arredondo at race to honor Marines
ABC News 10
Michael Chen
April 17, 2013

BOSTON - The father of a fallen Camp Pendleton Marine is being hailed as a hero for his attempts to help the wounded after the explosions near the Boston Marathon finish line.

Carlos Arredondo's efforts were one of the most enduring images from the tragedy.

His hands shaking and the sleeves of his shirt stained with blood, Arredondo is heard in a YouTube video describing the chaos soon after the bombings.

"Then all you see was people without the limbs," said Arredondo.

A short time earlier, an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a determined Arredondo ushering an injured man to an ambulance.

Arredando, the father of a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004, had been passing out flags in honor of Marines when the bombs went off. He ran towards the explosion, ahead of police, and jumped a fence to get to the injured.
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Lynn firefighter made 'tourniquets out of belts and shoe strings'

Lynn firefighter made 'tourniquets out of belts and shoe strings'
Originally Published on Wednesday, April 17, 2013
By Thor Jourgensen
The Daily Item

LYNN — The low-pitched boom silenced the crowd seated around Matt Patterson inside Abe and Louie's, and the explosion that followed drove the Lynn firefighter to his feet and toward the restaurant's front door.

Patterson pushed through other diners, shouting at them to move to the restaurant's kitchen, before running outside and clearing one, then a second barrier blocking off the Boston Marathon's finish line area along Boston's Boylston Street.

The 30-year-old Army veteran's training and firefighter paramedic skills kicked in as Patterson knelt next to a boy lying in the street. One of the blasts sheared off the boy's right leg and Patterson told a man who ran up to help him, "I need your belt."
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In Boston blasts, veterans shift into combat mode

In Boston blasts, veterans shift into combat mode
Washington Post
By Vernon Loeb
Published: April 17, 2013

When the bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, Brennan Mullaney and Eusebio Collazo were together on the course at mile 25.

Mullaney, now a captain in the Army Reserve, served 15 months during the “surge” in Iraq. Collazo of Humble, Tex., a former Marine corporal, was wounded in Iraq’s Anbar province by mortar shrapnel and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

They were approaching Boylston Street as members of a national nonprofit group that promotes healing among veterans, Team Red, White and Blue. And then suddenly the tables turned, and they found themselves helping to heal and comfort a city that had never experienced a roadside bomb.

“The real crazy symbolism here is that this was essentially an IED, an improvised explosive device,” said Army Maj. Mike Erwin, who founded the team in 2010 to help veterans heal and re-integrate into their communities through running and other physical activities. “What runners and the community experienced in Boston is the exact same thing that hundreds of thousands of service members have experienced since 2002, when they started using IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

As smoke wafted across Boylston Street and maimed marathon spectators lay across a bloody sidewalk, one veteran, an Army colonel and runner, shifted into combat mode as he crossed the finish line. He turned back into the chaos, peeled off his Team Red, White & Blue T-shirt and tied it as a tourniquet on the limb of a bombing victim.

A combat veteran who served in Iraq and was awarded a Purple Heart, the colonel later refused to allow a team spokesman to release his name after snippets of his actions were caught on video.

Turning T-shirts into tourniquets is not something most spectators along the marathon course would have had much experience with. “When we’re deployed, we all carry tourniquets — nice ones,” said Mullaney, 30, of Cumberland, Md., now a graduate student at Tufts University.

“When you see missing limbs, the first thing all of us know is to tie a tourniquet.”
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Amid shock at Boston Marathon, a rush to help strangers

Amid shock at Marathon, a rush to help strangers
By David Abel
GLOBE STAFF
APRIL 16, 2013

The woman’s eyes stared vacantly into the sky.

The runners had been bounding in, beaming with relief. On both sides of Boylston Street, hundreds of spectators still had packed the area, many cheering with hoarse voices for the late finishers surging in, scores of them every minute. An elderly volunteer greeting runners kept repeating this mantra: “You’re all winners.”

When the first boom shattered the bliss and the haze of white smoke washed over the finish line, I could see in the eyes of the woman what had happened. She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving. Her eyes appeared lifeless as she lay beside the metal barriers on the sidewalk, where dozens of people were sprawled on the concrete, their limbs mangled, blood and broken glass everywhere.

I had been in a crouch shooting video of runners taking their final steps of the race, maybe 10 feet from the blast. I saw runners in front of me fall, at least one of whom appeared wounded. Those beside me at the center of the finish line — Marathon volunteers, security, fellow journalists — fell back as the ground trembled.
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Bostonians and others rush to support stranded visitors
By Lateef Mungin
CNN
April 16, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The blasts left many without shelter as hotels were evacuated
Some people posted on websites that they were stranded
More than 100 people offered help on one website

(CNN) -- They're offering their spare rooms, their couches, their food, their cars -- even their own beds.

A huge wave of strangers is greeting the many visitors stranded by the Boston Marathon bombings with a massive outpouring of support.

"We figure this is the least we can do," said Heather Carey, who offered a couch at the home near Boston University she shares with roommates. "I saw a website with many others offering their spaces like we did. It is awesome to see so many people helping."

The twin blasts Monday that left three dead and more than 140 wounded also left countless people without shelter. Investigators turned the heart of Boston into a crime scene, evacuating several hotels. This left dozens of visitors, some of them international runners unfamiliar with the area, stranded.
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When someone does something evil, everyone always asks "Where is God?" but when people rush to help, thinking of others, God is right there.

Police officers, firefighters, Boston National Guardsmen and average citizens rushed to help the wounded and comfort the shocked people after these two bombs exploded.

April 15th, 2013
10:10 PM ET
Runner: Bombs sounded like Afghanistan
Capt. Thom Kenney is an Afghan war veteran who ran the Boston Marathon and finished the race minutes before the bomb attack. He describes what he witnessed to Anderson Cooper.

Polk Marine killed in Nevada laid to rest

Polk Marine killed in Nevada laid to rest
By Saundra Weathers, Reporter
April 06, 2013

It’s tragedies like this that sadly brings together former military biker groups like the Lethernecks. They lead the precession for Fenn’s funeral Saturday.

WINTER HAVEN

The family of the Polk County marine killed in a training exercise last month, laid him to rest Saturday.

David Fenn was one of seven men killed when a mortar round exploded.

Seeing the American flag covered casket of 20-year-old Lance Corporal David Fenn being loaded into a hearst, was hard for everyone watching.

“I don’t feel like he’s gone. He can’t be gone,” said Fenn’s sister Melanie Fenn.

His childhood friend Brittany Roberts says she’s just happy to see the support. “This is really amazing how many people have come out to support David, his family,” Roberts said.

Even complete strangers came to give their condolences.

“It touches home this is home. And this is our sadness with their families,” said Marine Family of Central Florida member, Tera Williams.
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