Community Corner

PUSD Board Member Beatty Says Boston Marathon Blast 'Like a Cannon'

Poway Unified School District board member Kimberley Beatty had just crossed the Boston Marathon finish line when she heard a pair of explosions behind her.

She had just crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon and picked up her medal when Kimberley Beatty heard the sound.

"We just heard this loud explosion like a cannon, a very loud bang and everybody turned around. ...Just hearing the noise itself just elicited this 'oh my God, something terrible's happened', " she said.

On Monday, a pair of deadly explosions rocked the Boston Marathon around 2:50 p.m. Eastern time, missing Beatty, a Poway Unified School District board member, and her husband, Ned, by minutes.

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"We turned around and saw this big plume of smoke. Right after that, this second explosion, further down the street from the finish line and then, you know, I just got very upset," Beatty said from her hotel room Monday, about two blocks from the scene of the explosion on Boylston Street.

She had finished the marathon in 3 hours, 59 minutes and 42 seconds, about 10 minutes after her husband, when the explosions sounded behind her. Up ahead her husband Edward, who goes by Ned, heard the explosion, too.

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"At first I heard a large bang and was very concerned becase we were separated still. ...The crowd was moving away rapidly from that area and I was moving toward it because I wanted to see if I could find Kimberley.

"What a relief when I found her," Ned Beatty said.

Kimberley Beatty, who said she has run the marathon for the past four years with her husband, said she "covered my face [and] broke down crying" as she moved up the street after the blasts, searching for her husband.

It was the second explosion that made Ned Beatty think that "something horrible" had happened.

"Having the second explosion really kind of makes you realize that is must have been some kind of planned attack of some sort, not some accident," he said.

The couple made it to their hotel about two-and-a-half blocks away and were soon inundated with phone calls and text messages from family members and friends, including their oldest son, 18-year-old Parker, who is a student at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Kimberley Beatty said she had given him the couples' bib numbers so he could track them as they ran the race and when he saw their finish times, near the four-hour mark of the race, he realized that they had crossed near the time of the blast.

"He was the first one to call and he was just scared that something bad had happened," she said.

Both Beatty and her husband said it was "eerie" that the marathon's runners had observed a moment of silence for the shooting victims of the Newtown, CT massacre before the race, just hours before the deadly explosions.

"The people from Boston and the surrounding communities are just so wonderful," she said. "I think that's what makes this all the more upsetting."

Beatty said she is scheduled to return home to San Diego on Tuesday.

Check back soon for updates.

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