After explosions shook the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the Ball State community scrambled to find family and friends who were in the area.
Ball State alumnus Michael Suer had finished the race and was safely back in his hotel room when the bomb went off.
“Then I start getting these texts from my brother-in-law, and all these people saying ‘Hey, are you OK? Are you okay?’” Suer said. “We turned on the news and were like ‘wow.’”
Suer was one of three registered Boston Marathon participants from Muncie. Melissa McGrath, assistant professor of speech-language pathology, participated in the race. McGrath’s husband informed Ball State to tell her students that she was unharmed after the attack.
Shawn Hickey, a Ball State junior musical theatre major, is from Boston and said it had been hard to get in touch with her family and friends since cellphone towers were reportedly down for some time after the attack took place. Many of her friends from high school were watching the race. One was at the 26-mile marker about 15 minutes before the explosion happened there.
“I got a lot of Facebook messages from people saying they are okay which was really nice,” she said. “I was able to call my house and talk to my parents. It made me feel a lot better to get in touch with them.”
Freshman marketing major Bryan Kubel’s high school classmate was watching the race from about a block away from the explosion site. Kubel said it took him about an hour and a half to get ahold of his friend.
“I was really shaken up when I saw the tweets about it,” he said. “I didn’t know [the word] ‘explosion,’ that’s not very descriptive. I didn’t know what was up. So then I saw Twitter start blowing up about that and then I realized my friend told me he was in Boston watching his mom [running].”
Suer and Hickey both commented on how important the marathon is to the Boston community. Schools are closed that day and there is usually a large number of attendees.
“Today’s a big celebration, happy day for everybody and then this happens,” Suer said. “Everyone is out celebrating and it’s just packed with people and everyone is out just having a good time. You really feel bad for the families that are affected.”
That fun and friendly atmosphere has certainly changed.
“We went out for dinner just now and walked back. It’s a two block walk and we saw seven police cars, some [officers] standing on the corners driving up and down the roads with their lights on,” he said. “While we were sitting outside, we saw at least one police officer walk by with a German shepherd sniffing around, trying to look for things. The cops are just out everywhere. Pretty much the whole city is on lock down.”
According to the Associated Press, the Federal Aviation Administrations established a no-fly zone over the area shortly following the explosion, and canceled flights out of Boston’s Logan International Airport.
“We’re glad that we weren’t flying out today,” Suer said. “I really wouldn’t want to go to the airport right now and have to fly out. Who knows, it’s awfully scary.”
“It’s a weird feeling,” Kubel said. “A feeling you shouldn’t have to go through when you find out that someone that is really close to you is involved in such a tragic situation like that, and it could have been a lot worse so thankfully it wasn’t, at least for him and his family.”
Sara Nahrwold and Devan Filchak contributed to this story.
