The Marathon Bombing,10 Years Later

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic Boston Marathon bombing which occurred  on April 15, 2013, when two brothers set off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the marathon, killing three persons (Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford; Lü Lingzi, a 23-year-old Chinese national and Boston University statistics graduate student; and 8-year-old Martin William Richard from Dorchester) and injuring 281 persons, of whom 16 lost limbs.

In addition, during the manhunt for the bombers in the ensuing days, the brothers shot and killed 27 year-old Sean Allen Collier, an MIT police officer, who crossed their path, and shot two Boston police officers, one of whom, Dennis Simmonds, died on April 10, 2014, from head injuries he received during the shootout in Watertown.

One of the brothers was killed during the shootout and the other eventually was captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, and now is imprisoned in a federal Supermax facility.

For those of us who are lifelong Boston-area residents, the horror of that afternoon, as well as the three-day manhunt for the suspects, will remain etched in our memories forever as no other local event ever has.

We will never forget the tremendous performance of the medical and emergency crews on the scene and at our area hospitals, who miraculously saved the lives of scores of victims who otherwise might have died from their wounds.

Ten years later, the memory of that day gives all of us pause to reflect, both to remember the innocent victims and to honor those whose heroic actions saved lives.