Given Suffolk’s downtown Boston location, it’s no surprise that some Suffolk students were near the finish line to watch the marathon.

Ivan Favelevic of The Suffolk Journal recounts the fateful events of the day.

A Senseless Loss

Suffolk University prides itself on being in the heart of Boston. This pride was shown when one of the city’s oldest traditions, the marathon, was a victim of terrorist attacks.

Print journalism major, junior Allison Thibault, was taking part in the celebration as she stood by the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

“It wasn’t super packed, but there were still a lot of people…people were still watching, still cheering.” Thibault was originally behind the flags lining Boylston Street, however, they blocked her view of the race and the crowd was about “three rows of people deep.” She and her cousin then decided to move further down Boylston, where it crosses Exeter Street. They stood there for about two minutes when they heard the blast. “I was thinking ‘oh, they are shooting off a cannon.’ When I looked back over smoke covered the street, people were running and screaming…I did not process it, I just knew I had to leave.” Thibault and her cousin ran down Exeter Street. “People were sobbing, I saw a middle aged guy screaming a girl’s name.”

The two explosives were placed inside backpacks and dropped into trash cans about 100 yards away from each other, according to an Associated Press source. The first explosion occurred at the 600th block of Boylston Street in front of the Marathon Sports store, while the second bomb detonated ten seconds later at the intersection of Boylston and Ring Road, right in front of the Forum bar. The AP source released details on the explosives saying they were “homemade bombs” built out of pressure cookers filled with metal shards and ball bearings.

Suffolk alumnus Alex Pearlman, who is currently a Digital Product Manager at Boston.com, was at the Forum when the explosions went off. The building shook, the room became filled with smoke, and she was ordered to leave in what she called an “organized chaos.”