13.Thomas Barrett — Direct

THOMAS BARRETT: My name is Thomas Barrett. My last name is B-a-r-r-e-t-t.

THOMAS BARRETT: Good afternoon.

THOMAS BARRETT: I work for the Boston Police Department.

THOMAS BARRETT: I've been with the Boston Police for ten years.

THOMAS BARRETT: Patrolman.

THOMAS BARRETT: Respond to 911 calls. I write reports. In the past I've been assigned to anti-crime, traffic duty; I've had a walking beat. We do all the basic things that you think a police officer does: respond to first-aid calls, crimes in progress. Mostly, I write a lot of reports.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I have.

THOMAS BARRETT: Since I've been with the Boston Police, three times.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes. All three times I've been assigned between the finish line and Hereford Street.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, on Boylston Street.

THOMAS BARRETT: For me, it usually starts with a roll call where the captain addresses us. He gives us our assignments, tell us to get out to our posts on time; and then once we're on our posts, we are on the street side of the barricades. So the spectators are on the other side of the barricades. It's usually a very festive atmosphere. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun for the officers to work sometimes. Sometimes we do have minor problems with spectators wanting to cross, but that's usually the biggest problem that I've ever had to deal with, and pickpockets.

THOMAS BARRETT: I'd say every type of person out there would attend: young people with their kids and strollers; teenagers; adults; older people; people that have lived in Boston all their lives; people that have come just for the Marathon from around the country, around the world. All kinds.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I was.

THOMAS BARRETT: I was assigned the Marathon route on Boylston Street, and my post was between Ring Road and Fairfield Street, on the even side.

THOMAS BARRETT: The weather was nice for the runners. It was cold for me. I seemed to be cold all day. And I had a winter coat on. At lunch time I had to go get a pair of gloves. But it was a nice day.

THOMAS BARRETT: I was on the even side of Boylston Street, in between a restaurant named Sol de la Terre, and there's another restaurant in the opening of the Mandarin Hotel. I don't know the name of the restaurant. I've never been inside.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Sure.

THOMAS BARRETT: If it's the yellow dot, it's on the outside.

THOMAS BARRETT: Okay.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, sir.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes. The spectators would be on the sidewalk, and the officers were on the street. So the metal barricade was between the officers, the runners, and then the spectators.

THOMAS BARRETT: It would be to my right on the screen.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I do.

THOMAS BARRETT: (Indicating.)

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, it is.

THOMAS BARRETT: I heard the sound and to me it was like somebody was firing a cannon. If you've ever been to the Fourth of July, that's what it sounded like on the Esplanade. They fire off the cannons. And then I could see white smoke. And then I could see black smoke and a little bit of orange flame.

THOMAS BARRETT: Fifteen seconds.

THOMAS BARRETT: It sounded much like the first one but a lot louder.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: An orange fireball. The same thing, the white smoke first, then the original fireball, and then black smoke right after it.

THOMAS BARRETT: I ran over to where it exploded.

THOMAS BARRETT: It smelled like sulfur as if you were at the firing range, you know, like heavy smell of gunpowder.

THOMAS BARRETT: Probably not more than a few seconds.

THOMAS BARRETT: The heat. I could liken it to opening up the oven and your face is right in front of it. That's what it felt like. That was the only part of my body that wasn't covered. I had a sweater on, my police jacket, long underwear, gloves, and a -- my department hat. But my face was uncovered, and you could just feel it right on my face.

THOMAS BARRETT: Just the area where the bomb exploded.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I do.

THOMAS BARRETT: That's the front of the Forum restaurant, the runners on Boylston Street, and then, you know, the spectators on both sides of Boylston Street.

THOMAS BARRETT: The yellow awning is the -- that restaurant, Sol de la Terre. On the screen, I would be to the right, off of the screen.

THOMAS BARRETT: That's the door to the Forum restaurant, I believe.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Okay.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: No, he doesn't look any different than anybody in the crowd that I saw.

THOMAS BARRETT: Okay.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I do.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: I don't remember anybody else that I saw, but I was intent on watching what I had seen. I wasn't focused on the crowd or anything like that. I was looking down Boylston Street at the explosion.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I was.

THOMAS BARRETT: About 15 seconds.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes. That's me.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: When I first got there, you know, there was so many people that were hurt seriously that it was hard to choose who to begin helping first. So that's what I was doing, just trying to pick who -- maybe who was hurt the worst, in my view. Everybody was hurt really bad, but I was trying to pick who I could help first.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: His clothes had been blown off, and he was on fire.

THOMAS BARRETT: I used my hands to put out the fire.

THOMAS BARRETT: As I was putting out the flames, somebody came up behind me and poured a -- I don't know if it was a beer or drink or something on him to help. So he helped me. And then there was also a woman that was -- she was using a napkin to wrap up one of his legs that had been blown off. And then another woman came up on the street, and I -- I was trying to get my belt off, but I had my gun; I had my radio. And I couldn't leave my gun on the street by itself. So I asked her, I said, Can you give me your belt? Can you take your belt off? Could you give me the strap to your purse, something like that? She didn't -- I don't think she understood me at first, but she eventually did. I kind of motioned, Take your belt off. She gave me her belt. I took the belt, and I wrapped it around that gentleman's right thigh. And the woman that was holding the bottom of his leg, you know, I told her, I'm going to tie the belt around. I'm going to pull it as tight as I can, and you just keep pulling it as tight as you can. That's what I did.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: I don't know if it stopped the bleeding, but it's the best action that I could take and then to have her pull it as tight as she could while she was there, and then I could move on sort of to the next -- the next person I could help.

THOMAS BARRETT: I'm right in front of the tree.

THOMAS BARRETT: It looks like I'm stepping over somebody.

THOMAS BARRETT: Somebody yelled, you know, There's a kid here or a child here or something like that, and that's what got my attention. So that's what I went to. That man was holding a young boy.

THOMAS BARRETT: He was three.

THOMAS BARRETT: It's Leo.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, he did. He had blood coming down the side of his head.

THOMAS BARRETT: I don't know if he was crying or screaming or anything. I don't remember.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yeah. I carried him across Boylston Street, sort of almost to the other side. And I -- the way he was handed to me is the way I carried him out. So he wasn't facing me. He was facing away. And I could see that there was blood coming down his -- you know, the right side of his head. I think it was the right side of his head. His hair was all messed up, disheveled, whatever you call it. So I saw that he was bleeding so I just grabbed him. And the best way I can describe it is I carried him like a football. I knew that the medical tent was at Boylston and Dartmouth Street. So I said, you know, that's what I'm going to do. I can at least carry him down to the medical tent, to Boylston Street and Dartmouth Street, and get him the hell out of there.

THOMAS BARRETT: I got -- I ran down with him at Boylston and Exeter Street. A Boston EMS ambulance was coming down Exeter Street from Huntington Avenue. So I waved them down, and it was -- I found out later on what the unit was, Paramedic 40. They stopped for me. Both of the paramedics got out, and I told them, you know, I have a young boy. Looks like he has a head injury. I don't know how seriously injured he is. But, you know, can I give him to you guys, put him in the back of the ambulance? And then I told the guys, I said, We need you up at Boylston and Ring Road, or whatever address I gave them. I said, you know, We need you up here. And they took Leo. One went in the back. The other guy drove. And I ran back to the front of the Forum and the ambulance followed me.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, I did.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, it is.

THOMAS BARRETT: When I met with the U.S. Attorney back in -- I think it was September.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: It's Mark Fucarile.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes.

THOMAS BARRETT: Yes, it is.

THOMAS BARRETT: That's me taking Leo.

THOMAS BARRETT: That's me carrying Leo.

THOMAS BARRETT: That's me carrying Leo.

THOMAS BARRETT: I was walking across from the -- from the front of the Forum to the other side of Boylston Street.

THOMAS BARRETT: Twenty to thirty, give or take.

THOMAS BARRETT: It was -- it was brutal. You know, there was blood, a lot of blood on the ground, mixed with -- it looked like charring. There was a person's leg on Boylston Street that I -- later on, while I was backing up, after helping somebody, I stepped on it. I stepped on somebody's leg. People were missing legs, and, you know, the legs were ripped off. It wasn't anything clean or neat. A lot of people had, you know, clothes that were torn, shredded. At one point, when I was kneeling over somebody, helping somebody, I looked up, and there was a woman that was sitting up, and she had been eviscerated across her abdomen. And she was holding onto her insides, holding them in. And I said to myself, you know, quickly, There's nothing I can do for her, you know. There's really nothing that I could do at that point to help this woman that is holding in her insides, but there were other things that I could help people with. Those are the people I had to move to.

THOMAS BARRETT: There was one -- after I had brought Leo to the ambulance and brought the ambulance back, I went back, and there were a lot of people that ran over to help. There were spectators, you know, maybe runners, watching the Marathon, that they -- you know, they did some really brave things. They came in and helped us. They didn't think of themselves. They came in to help, and they were helping a lot of people. So once I brought Leo back, when I went to help some other people, you know, they were asking, you know, Do we have any stretchers or backboards or anything like that to carry people? And at the time we didn't have anything. There was a fire truck there that was on Boylston Street, Ladder 15, I think it was. So the fire truck has compartments. They usually have backboards. So I climbed on top of the fire truck and was opening the compartments looking for anything that I could use. So I found two backboards, two red backboards and then -- it's a metal litter that you carry somebody in. So I grabbed those off the truck. And if you've ever thrown a surfboard across the sand or across the water, that's what I did with them because I was, like, 25 feet away. I just grabbed the backboards and threw them over to the sidewalk. People there, they were helping, you know. We took one person that -- he had lost his leg. So we put him on the backboard. Other people, I think, had tied a tourniquet. And people were asking me, you know, Do you have any straps to carry the person on the backboard? Usually the backboard has straps so you can tie them on. If you've ever carried somebody on a backboard, if their arm falls off to the right, usually the person would roll off the backboard. So you want to tie them down with straps. We didn't have any straps. At least I couldn't find them. So I said, Take off your belt, tie it around his legs, tie it around anywhere you can. So there were six of us, three on each side, that carried the guy to the ambulance. That first ambulance that was there, it had Leo, and then we filled it with three adults. So it was three adults plus Leo. We put him in the ambulance. I asked the ambulance where it was going. They told me Mass. General. Okay. They left. Now other ambulances were coming down. So I went back, and the next person I helped, it looked like he maybe was standing next to a barricade because at the middle of his thighs was starting to turn black and blue as if both of his legs were broken. He was complaining that his back hurt and his neck hurt and his head hurt. People were helping there. Again, I had a nurse -- I think it was a nurse, you know, come up and say, I'm a nurse, you know. How can I help? I was, like, you can help right here. Or I'm a doctor. Jump right in. I'm not going to stop you. That's for sure. You don't need to ask my permission. So they were jumping in. They were helping. So people were asking for C collars. I said to the person, We don't have any of that stuff, you know. We're just going to have to get them on the backboards and try and get them out of here as best we can. We rolled him over as best we could. He was in a lot of pain. He was moaning. So we got him on the backboard, and, again, six of us carried him over to an ambulance. That ambulance was full. So then we had to back out, walk to the next ambulance. That ambulance was full. And, finally, after the third time, we found an ambulance to put him in. And that was -- that's what we did.

THOMAS BARRETT: Thank you.

THOMAS BARRETT: Thank you, your Honor.