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BOSTON -- Many Americans have seen the shaky photos and videos
taken when the bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston
Marathon on April 15, 2013. Among the many people who went to the
aid of the injured, there are glimpses of runners who stripped off
their shirts to tie tourniquets around the shattered limbs of bomb
victims.
One of those unknown runners was Col. Everett Spain,
an Army engineer who is earning a doctorate in management at the
Harvard Business School. On April 18, 2014 in a ceremony on the
school's Baker Lawn, Spain received the Soldier's Medal, the Army's
highest award for valor in a non-combat situation.
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April 18, 2014 - Col. Everett Spain is presented the Soldier's
Medal, the U.S. Army's highest peacetime decoration for heroism, by
Maj. Gen. William Rapp, chief, Army Legislative Liaison. Spain
received the award for heroism for actions taken one-year prior at
the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, where he
distinguished himself following the two blasts by immediately and
selflessly rushing toward the threat without regard to his own
personal safety; rendering first aid until medical help arrived
despite the potential for additional explosive devices. (Courtesy
Photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
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But Spain has shunned any publicity, avoided interviews
with the civilian news media.
"First and foremost, I
was brought up to believe that military officers should
never seek praise for themselves," Spain said. "Our purpose
is to serve others through character and leadership."
Despite Spain's modesty, his actions are a matter of
public record in images taken during the Boston Marathon
attack. He was only about 100 yards from the finish line
when the bombs exploded.
He was escorting Steve
Sabra, a 58-year old visually impaired runner who frequently
selects Harvard Business School students to be his race
guides. Spain's wife, Julia, escorted Sabra on the first 10
kilometers (6.2 miles) of the race. Tom Hennessey and Scott
McBride, both Harvard Business School students and Navy
veterans, also escorted Sabra. Hennessy ran from the 10K to
the 20K mile markers, and McBride from the 10K to the 30K,
where Spain took over to escort Sabra to the finish line.
McBride decided to tag along to the end.
The trio was
100 yards from the finish line when the first bomb detonated
about 50 yards ahead. Moments later, the second bomb
detonated about 210 yards behind the first.
Spain is
a 22-year Army veteran with combat experience. In Iraq he
received the Purple Heart while with the 1st Cavalry
Division, and later served as the aide-de-camp of Gen. David
Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, during
"The Surge." He is also a graduate of the elite U.S. Army
Ranger School.
So the moment the bombs exploded,
Spain instinctively grabbed Sabra's elbow and sprinted to
the finish line. McBride escorted Sabra to his family
waiting in the reunion area while Spain ran back to the site
of the first explosion.
"It's what Soldiers do,"
Spain said. "Scott had positive control of Steve and was
taking him toward safety, so it was my responsibility to run
to the critical point and see if I could help. I've served
with thousands of brave and selfless service members and
civilians throughout my time in the Army, and they all had
high expectations of me and each other to always try to do
the right thing."
He found several severely wounded
people on the sidewalk, including a man bleeding profusely
from his lower left leg while his daughter, distraught and
wounded herself, frantically tried to stop her father's
bleeding. Spain immediately removed his shirt and tied it
tightly around the man's wound.
"My husband, Ron, had
lost a large portion of his leg," said Karen Brassard,
recounting the moment. "I had a sweater and tried to make a
tourniquet, but it just didn't work. My daughter panicked;
she thought she was going to lose her dad. Then Everett came
and tied another tourniquet and got my daughter to calm down
enough to let Ron go so that they could take him to a tent.
Everett had been in battle and had seen stuff like this. He
was so self-assured, so calm that my daughter trusted him.
It was amazing to watch."
Spain then moved to a woman
lying in a pool of blood in the doorway of an athletic store
while another responder tried unsuccessfully to put pressure
on the wound. Spain secured a jacket from the store, tied
its arms into a tourniquet just above the woman's leg wound,
and used a sturdy clothes hanger to tighten the tourniquet.
He and the other responder then held the woman's legs in the
air until emergency medical technicians arrived several
minutes later.
Spain heard the athletic store's fire
alarms and searched for possible victims trapped inside that
store and two neighboring buildings. When he exited the
third building, uniformed responders asked him if he was all
right, then ordered him to depart the area.
Spain was
smeared with blood (not his own), and a concerned bystander
escorted him to the race's medical tent. There Spain saw a
woman with multiple serious limb injuries and severe burns
wheeled in on a gurney and left alone. She was shaking and
turning pale, which Spain recognized as symptoms of shock,
so he got another blanket and then stayed with her, talking
to her and comforting her. Several minutes later, Spain
accompanied her in an ambulance to Boston Medical Center,
holding her hand and reassuring her the entire way.
Thinking back on that day, Spain says that he doesn't
remember being scared because his training kicked in
automatically.
"I remember a lot of that day vividly,
but some things I simply do not remember, for example
treating one of the victims who captured in photographs."
Spain and his family have kept in touch with the people
he aided and their families. Six survivor families,
including all of those that Spain met that day, attended the
ceremony where he received the Soldier's Medal. The
Soldier's Medal is the Army's highest award for valor in a
non-combat situation involving personal danger and voluntary
risk of life. The award requires the same level of valor as
the Distinguished Service Cross, had the situation involved
combat.
"Without hesitation we were on board with the
Soldier's Medal because it isn't easy to run back into
danger with no idea how any more bombs there were or what
you're going to see," said family member Karen Brassard.
"It's not a natural instinct to do that. He is such a
genuinely good man, and I think he deserved such
recognition, even though that's so anti-Everett."
Spain says it is difficult to explain why he reacted as he
did that day.
"I can say with perfect honesty that it
was not me who ran toward the smoke, but the values
deliberately imprinted on me by my faith, my family, my
friends, my mentors, the many character-building
institutions I've been privileged to be associated with, and
our American spirit," Spain said in his speech during the
ceremony. "Those values ran toward that smoke."
Spain
says that any Soldier has the training and the values to do
what he did.
"I'm no hero; I'm simply a work in
progress," he said in his speech during the ceremony. God
has His own timing, and I hope I was able to be a small help
to others during their time of need. The truth is that all
past, present and future U.S. service members and their
families would have done the same things I did, and more."
On April 21, just a few days after the Soldier's Medal
ceremony, Spain and his wife ran the Boston Marathon again
and finished together. Julia is also at Harvard getting a
masters degree in extension studies, with a concentration in
international relations.
"Julia and I ran the whole
thing together," Spain said. One of the families that he
assisted gave them invitation entries. The family received
the entries from the Boston Athletic Association to give to
whoever they wished. "It was Julia's first marathon and it
was a great experience as a couple."
Spain will
graduate from the Harvard Business School in May with a
doctorate in management. His previous assignment was
commander of U.S. Army Garrison Schweinfurt in Germany. His
next assignment is to the faculty of the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point teaching in the Department of
Behavioral Sciences and Leadership.
By U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bernard Tate
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2014
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