Local Reaction to Boston Marathon Blasts

BOSTON — There are over 27,000 runners who participated in this year’s Boston Marathon, and a number of them are East Texans. That includes Tyler attorney Wes Volberding. He told KTBB’s Bill Coates that he had finished the race and was just blocks away when he both heard and felt the explosions that rocked the location this afternoon. Volberding says, “My immediate reaction was concern and recognition that it may be an attack.” Volberding says he immediately began moving out of the area, along with 80-year-old Tylerite Harold Wilson, leaving the situation up to responders. He said others around him reacted in a similar fashion. Wilson had also completed the race, and had actually won in his age group, when the blasts went off.

Dr. John Camp of Tyler’s Azalea Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Clinic had also finished and was on his way back to a Boston hotel when the explosion happened. Camp told Coates he’s always felt secure at the marathon, but the explosions were “one of those things that unfortunately happens in this day and age.”