BOSTON -- "I crossed the finish line about a minute before the first explosion," Sarah Chapin said Wednesday, back in Rhode Island.
"It was incredibly loud," Chapin, 40, of Providence recalled. She looked to her side and saw another runner, a Marine. He had been running with an American flag.
Now, she said, "he looked really alarmed."
There was no time to think. Runners and bystanders, guided by race volunteers, ran in one direction; emergency workers in the opposite.
Chapin looked back. Over the finish arch, she could see a white plume of smoke.
A second explosion went off.
She noticed two girls, about 12 years old, leaving in tears.
"And that's the age group that I teach," said Chapin, a teacher in Fall River. "That was just scary."
Cell phones were down. She texted her husband: he had been standing by the Gatorade stand, where they later learned an unexploded device had been found.