BOSTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, other leaders and survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing shared messages of thanks and defiance yesterday at a tribute to the three people killed and 264 wounded in the attack exactly one year ago.
From Patrick Downes, who lost a leg when a pair of homemade bombs ripped through the crowd at the race’s finish line, to Biden, speakers recalled how police officers, spectators and others on the scene reacted immediately to help the wounded amid the chaos on April 15, 2013.
Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who managed the response to the attack during the final year of his two decades in office, recalled the struggles of the families of Martin Richard, 8, Krystle Campbell, 29, and Chinese national Lu Lingzi, 23, who died in the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
“You have struggled to get through the good days and the bad,” said Menino, who had been hospitalized at the time of the blasts but responded to the scene against his doctor’s orders.