How I became the face of the Boston bombing (Jeff Bauman Boston bombing survivor)

Salon ^ | 14 April 2014 | Jeff Bauman

[Lorianne]

Book excerpt from Stronger:

The bomb went off at 2:49 on Monday afternoon. Within seconds, the man in the cowboy hat was leaping the barricade guarding the finish line and racing toward the carnage. The second bomb went off when he was half-way across the street, but he kept coming. They all kept coming to help us: police officers, race volunteers, bystanders.

The first pictures came out almost immediately thereafter. They were long-shots of the scene: the concussion of the bomb shaking a camera filming the race. The force of the blast knocking down a runner about to cross the finish line. The plume of smoke. Strangers were huddled over victims on the ground, assuring them that it would be alright, that help was on the way, that they weren’t alone. People were stripping off sweaters and belts for tourniquets. Some held wounds closed with their hands.

Then the first photo of a recognizable human face: my face. It was the now-famous photo of me in the wheelchair, with the man in the cowboy hat running beside me. Everyone calls it “iconic” now, but at the time it was horrifying. I have a cut above my eye, and one on my cheek. My face was pale and filthy from powder burns. My shirt charred and blood-stained. And I had no legs.

[Lorianne]

"One year ago, Jeff Bauman lost both of his legs. But his story is one of resilience, not despair"

I recommend this his book STRONGER. Costco sells it (among others)

[Hatteras]

"It was the now-famous photo of me in the wheelchair, with the man in the cowboy hat running beside me. Everyone calls it “iconic” now,..."

For the life of me, I will never figure out "journalists" who would write such a thing and not include the "iconic" photo in their article...

If you don't care to show the bottom half of the photo, fine. It's pretty gruesome, we get that. Just crop it like this one...

[Lorianne]

This isn't a journalist writing this.

The person writing this is the actual person whose legs were blown off. It's an excerpt from his book recounting his experiences during and after the bombing.

I'm not going to criticize him for not including the photograph. Perhaps he prefers this image of himself from the cover of his book Stronger.

[windcliff]

He seems rather top heavy for the length of those prosthesis.

[Sioux-san]

I posted the whole picture earlier tonight - My whole comment was pulled, as this one will probably also be pulled. I said the same thing: why wasn’t the iconic photo shown??? It’s because it is pure BS - no one would be sitting in a wheelchair looking like this young man if both his legs had just been blown off -give me a break!!!