On April 15 at approximately 2:50 p.m. two crude bombs made from pressure cookers filled with nails, ball bearings and other sharp objects detonated near the finish line of the 117th annual Boston Marathon. At press time, three were killed and over 170 were injured, many resulting in amputations. The news of the blood-spattered scene akin to a battlefield sent shockwaves across the United States and around the world. For senior Cecilia Bouaichi, the attacks hit close to home.

Bouaichi and her family were relaxing in the lobby of their hotel in Boston after her dad had finished the marathon just over an hour earlier when her sister, senior Kelsey Bouaichi, noticed a group of people was forming around the television.

“We walked over to see what everyone was looking at and we saw on the screen that there had been explosions,” Bouaichi said. “At first I just couldn’t believe it but then I thought maybe it wasn’t as big of a deal as it ended up being. I didn’t think it had actually affected anyone at first.”

It wasn’t until Bouaichi saw a photo online of the site where the second bomb went off that she realized just how truly lucky she had been.

“(While waiting for my dad to finish) I went further down from the finish line to try to find an open area and I called (my sister) Kelsey, and said ‘Okay, I’m right behind this mailbox and the store behind me is called Forum.’

“Then when I saw where the bomb was, like, literally I could see the restaurant and the bomb was placed next to that mailbox… it was literally the exact same area; we were a foot or two away from it. If it had gone off just a little earlier, I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened,” Bouaichi said.

However, Bouaichi isn’t the only one who happened to luck out on escaping the deadly blasts. Carmel resident Sandy Moreira has run the Boston Marathon with her husband for the past three years but decided against it this year.

“We had done it so many years we thought we’d just stay home this year. But (if we had been there) we would have been, like, right there (when the bombs went off). We usually run about a 3:30 to 3:35 marathon, and this year we would have been running in the third wave which starts 40 minutes after the first runners start, so that would have put us (in the area) right within minutes of the bombs going off… Watching the footage, it seemed unreal. I was horrified,” Moreira said.

The suspects for the bombings are Chechen natives Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerian Tsarnaev, who are brothers. Tamerian died in the early hours of April 19 following a shootout with the police and Dzhokhar was taken into custody that evening after sustaining two bullet wounds which left him in “serious condition.” One police officer was killed and another was seriously injured in the process of apprehending the suspects.

While the Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world, the United States’ largest half-marathon is the Indy 500 Mini-Marathon which is scheduled to take place on May 4, less than three weeks after the bombings. According to The Indianapolis Star, race officials began reviewing their current plans and will be beefing up security for the 37th annual event.

Despite Bouaichi’s recent brush with fate, she said she and her family still plan to run the race.

“My whole family does (the Mini-Marathon) every year. I’ve done it for eight years and my dad’s done it for even longer than that, so it’s such a big thing in our family. I don’t want to give that up,” Bouaichi said. “I definitely think there’ll be a lot more security and there might be less spectators. But mostly I bet the cheering will be a lot more to try to keep morale high and to not let it get everyone down.”

Although Moreira will not be competing in the Mini-Marathon, she too said the incident will not end her running career.

“I think we’ll still (compete in more races), but I think we’ll be nervous the first couple of times that we do it,” Moreira said. “We’re planning on running the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C. in October and…because it is in D.C., until we know more about what happened and who was behind this, I think I’ll be nervous about it.”

The day after the attacks, the Boston Athletic Association released a statement on its website, sending condolences to all those affected but promising “resilience and strength” and to keep the tradition going with the 118th annual Boston Marathon next year.

“The biggest tragedy of all this is that when you’re at a marathon you feel that sense that everybody there is achieving something incredible,” Moreira said. “(It’s) hard to think that somebody tainted that. It’s just an appalling tragedy.”