April 2013 was a truly eerie month for 43-year-old American Joe Bertie. The man witnessed two tragedies at once: first, he miraculously survived the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, and just two days later he saw with his own eyes the explosion and fire at a plant in his native Texas.
The man admitted that he considers himself lucky, but most of all he wants to "go somewhere far away from all these explosions."
Bertie's road to the Boston Marathon began just a couple of months ago, when he decided to take part in the race and help the charity Champions4Children, which helps children with rare and difficult to diagnose diseases. He was one of eight members of a team that fled to support sick children.
The marathon runner recalls that he heard the first explosion almost immediately after the finish. He turned and saw smoke. After a few seconds, a second explosion thundered. The man saw a rushing crowd, but by that moment he no longer had the strength to run anywhere. In the last four miles, Bertie felt very tired, but moved to the end, as at the start he vowed to his teammates to cross the finish line.
But the thought of his wife Amy, who came to support her beloved husband, did not let him go, the athlete admitted. As it turned out later, moments before the terrorist attack, the spouse photographed the running Bertie, standing only 10 meters from the explosion.
Amy didn't have a scratch, but the spectator, who was standing next to her, had her leg and all fingers on her left hand blown off. First, Amy Bertie tried to provide the unfortunate first aid, as soon as the rescuers arrived, the marathon runner's wife began a frantic search for him. Unbeknownst to her, he was at a safe distance at the time of the attack. My husband's mobile phone did not answer - his battery was dead, and it was not on buses and medical tents.
After the couple managed to find each other, they went to their native Texas Austin. Joe Bertie returned to work, but on Wednesday, just two days after the attack, he witnessed an explosion and fire at a fertilizer plant in West. This time Bertie was in the car.
Returning home from a work meeting in Dallas, he suddenly saw huge plumes of black smoke. Having approached closer, he was convinced that he had again witnessed the explosion. "This must be a joke!" - Bertie remembers her first feelings. The explosion thundered so violently that his car shuddered. The Giant Fireball looked like the nuclear explosions he had seen on television. At that time, Bertie did not yet know what had happened, but he stopped the car, got out, took some pictures and returned to the car.
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The frightened man thought that something from the sky fell on the roof of his car. Black smoke began to swiftly envelop the highway, Bertie held his breath and pressed on the gas, trying to get out of the smoke zone as quickly as possible. The danger soon passed, the man called his wife and told him about the new disturbing events that happened to him.
The family, who was born in a shirt, said that "I am grateful to God that he was merciful," now the couple are praying for people who are less fortunate. As a result of the terrorist attack in Boston, three were killed, about 180 people were injured. An explosion in the Texas town of West killed about 35 people, including ten emergency workers who were the first to arrive at the scene. More than 200 people were injured, 100 buildings were destroyed.