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Friday April 19, 2024
Escanaba Runner, Mom, OK After Boston Bombings

BOSTON---What started as a day of fun turned into a day of sadness and worry for an Escanaba woman as she watched her daughter run in the Boston Marathon on Monday.
 
Jayne Szukalowski was standing less than a block away from the Marathon finish line when the bombs went off at 2:50 in the afternoon. She says that at first, she thought the smoke and fire that she was seeing was celebratory fireworks.


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Jayne Interview Part #1
But unfortunately, it was not fireworks.
 
"What I saw was a ball of fire and smoke, which I thought to be fireworks," Szukalowski said in an RRN interview from her Boston hotel room Monday night. "Everyone was cheering. We were excited. Runners were coming in, and we were high-fiving them, and congratulating those coming in."

Then, she says, things ground to a halt. And then, realization set in.

"We waited for what felt like a lifetime, and then people started trickling in and rumors were coming to us that it wasn't fireworks. It was an explosion."


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Jayne Interview Part #2
Two of them, actually. And so while Szukalowski was at the finish line, her daughter, Kaylyn Bernard, never made it to the line because the race was abruptly stopped.

After some frantic moments of phone calls going to voicemail, It turned out that both mom and daughter were OK, but they are both emotionally shaken up. Szukalowski says that her daughter didn't know what to think when she was told to stop running.
 
"The volunteers were coming in and saying 'you need to stop'," she said. "Many of the runners were confused. They had no clue what that meant. Like, 'what do you mean stop the race?' And they weren't giving the runners information."

"They just said 'the race has ended'." 
 

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Jayne Interview Part #3
At least three people were killed and about 175 others were injured in the terrorist attack. Szukalowski says that the great feeling of just being at the Boston Marathon turned to sadness when she saw so many people hurting.

But even in this moment of sadness, Szukalowski says that she and her daughter are thankful to the many people back here in the Upper Peninsula who called, texted, and sent Facebook messages to make sure they were safe.

You can hear Szukalowski's comments in her own words by clicking the three audio links that we have provided. Picture courtesy of CBS News.