The Marathon bombings

Runner, just 3-foot-9, enjoys unique experience at Boston Marathon.

Juli Windsor, left, and David Abel run together during the 2014 Boston Marathon. (Stuart Merle)

By David Abel | Runner's World | April 23, 2014

It's every runner’s fantasy.

In front of her, there was only open road, as if she were out for a morning jog on her own. But there would be no solitude on this long, emotional slog from the Hopkinton Common to Copley Square.

As she went along, the crowds on each side of the road swelled, ultimately growing into the hundreds and then the thousands on some blocks, cheering for her alone.

For the first 15 kilometers, Juli Windsor – who at 3-foot-9 was among the first dwarfs to run the Boston Marathon – was leading the pack. There were no other runners in front of her. She was the first to be handed cups at nearly all the water stations along the first half of the course, an experience so peculiar that she felt badly tossing them on the ground as she cruised along at a pace of nine minutes per mile.

“Juli Windsor is winning the Boston Marathon!” I screamed as I plodded beside her, struggling to keep up.

The crowds were ecstatic, and not just because she was the first runner they would see pass by. “That’s the woman from Runner’s World!” some shouted, noting the long story that appeared in the magazine last month about her and a friend, John Young, another dwarf who ran Monday.

This was Juli’s second time running the Boston Marathon, but this year’s race – as for many others – was a much different experience. She was among the 5,700 runners last year who were denied the glory of crossing the finish line. She was less than a mile away when the bombs exploded.

I had met Juli a few months before the 2013 race to make a documentary about her experience, which I eventually called “25.7: In Twice the Steps.” I was standing on the finish line with a video camera waiting for her to arrive, waiting to shoot the final scene of my film. Instead, I captured the horror, and my footage was broadcast around the world.

When Juli vowed to run again, I wanted to join her.

The experience last year took a toll on Juli, who’s now 27. Aside from the extra effort it requires to take roughly twice as many steps as the average runner, dwarfs often suffer from problems in their spines and can experience greater back and joint pain after running long distances.

In addition to a long physical recovery from last year’s marathon, Juli had to cope with the trauma that many of us who were near the attack experienced. Juli’s family was waiting for her on Boylston Street, and her mother was trampled in the ensuing melee, her right shoulder shattered and her right eye swollen shut.

As Juli trained for this year’s race, she felt the miles more than most of us. On the weekend before the race, she had persistent pain in a joint in her lower spine. It bothered her so much that her right leg felt numb and it hurt even to sit. She also had trouble sleeping.

In short, she worried whether she would make it the full 26.2 miles.

But Juli scoffed at any suggestion she skip the marathon. That was not an option, she said. Instead, she decided it would be better to start early – her pain worsened as the day wore on – and leave with the other runners in the so-called mobility impaired division. (I ran as her guide, though I was probably the one more mobility impaired.)

Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff

When Juli finally arrived at the starting line, she was joined by the most impressive runners in the field. There were two double amputees, a man with a prosthesis that connected to his pelvis, and about a dozen others, including her friend, John Young, who had also been stopped last year before finishing.

After a moment of silence for the victims of last year’s attack, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick gave the signal for the runners to start. From her first steps, Juli led the pack.

By the time she reached the first mile marker – in less than eight minutes – none of the other runners were visible behind her. I had to urge her to slow down. She was moving so quickly even the initial spectators were caught by surprise when she passed.

The crowds were sparse at first, but their numbers started to grow in Ashland. As did their reactions at seeing Juli lope past, the words “Thank you” written in black marker on her left shoulder.

“You’re amazing,” they screamed.

Others shouted: “You go, girl!”

She had a good chuckle when a little boy pointed at her and said to his mom, “I thought children weren’t allowed to run the marathon.”

After about five miles, however, Juli looked concerned. She was feeling the pain. She stopped to stretch and I rubbed her back. She shook her head, grunted, and continued on.

As she passed the train station in Framingham, she watched four National Guard ambulance helicopters fly overhead, a symbol of the massive security and medical preparations undertaken for this year’s marathon. She also waved when Boston legend Bill Rodgers passed by in a convertible.

The pain increased as the miles did. There was more stretching and groaning, and a few bathroom breaks. But Juli fed off the crowds. The closer she got to Boston, the deeper they went behind the barricades, and the louder they cheered for the little leader of the Boston Marathon.

It was around the 10K mark that the first competitors in wheelchairs began passing her – they left about a half hour later – and it wasn’t until several miles afterward that the first elite women screamed by, many of them flashing her smiles of admiration and encouragement.

Still, near the halfway mark, Juli had the famous “scream tunnel” in Wellesley nearly all to her self. The legion of students was louder than ever. Juli held up her hand and absorbed a fusillade of high-fives, grinning the whole way and nearing a sprint. It was runner’s ecstasy.

“We love you, Boston!” she shouted.

When she passed the half marathon mark, she pumped her fists in the air. But the hardest parts were still to come.

She was now feeling it in her legs and lower back. After the elite men darted by in all but a blink, the thousands of other runners trailed close behind. Her pace had slowed considerably and the infamous Newton hills loomed.

The crowds – even bigger now – still erupted when they caught sight of Juli, but it was harder to see her in the pack. She trudged up the hills and fought through the pain. Her heart began to race. She felt dizzy. And she worried that she wasn’t sweating enough.

But she kept going, the Boston Strong signs everywhere and the crowds urging her on, offering her water, oranges, Vaseline, anything that might help.

After making it over Heartbreak Hill, she gathered strength as she crested down to Boston College. The crowds were huge and she felt the love. The towers above Boylston Street were now visible in the distance.

With less than five miles left, she stopped to stretch. She looked pale and exhausted. She was so close to completing a quest she had harbored since high school, but she was also so far. I wondered whether she was done, whether we would be taking the train the rest of the way

But something happened.

At the point most runners hit the wall, at the point that most of us break down, Juli somehow got stronger – and faster.

Bounding down into Cleveland Circle, she began passing other runners. I was struggling to keep up, my quads depleted and my calves tightening. Her strides were deliberate and elegant. She was stubborn and focused, a picture of resolve.

She stopped to stretch only one more time, and when she did, I felt my calves seize. I thought I was done. I told her to keep going without me.

After a quick stretch, the muscles loosened a bit and I was able to catch up with her.

Less than a mile away, Juli crossed under Massachusetts Avenue and turned to look at me. She had tears in her eyes. “This is where it happened – where we got stopped,” she said.

Whatever pain we both felt, there was no stopping anymore.

The crowds were bigger than ever – and louder. As we turned onto Hereford Street, we both felt overwhelmed. The adrenaline was now coursing and neither of us really noticed the final hill that usually feels more like a mountain.

Juli couldn’t hear them, but among all the spectators who had returned to a place that felt haunted for much of the past year, was her family, including her mom, who had struggled with what she experienced.

Now, the roar of the crowd deafening, Juli made the famous left turn on to Boylston Street and could see the finish line in the distance. Again, she was passing other runners as she surged toward the end.

As we approached the sites of the bombings, we veered close to the barricades and shouted our thanks to all the brave spectators who packed the sidewalks like they always have.

Moments later, we crossed the finish line together, holding hands.

It was a personal record for Juli.

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.

Solitary Confinement for Life

By David Abel GLOBE STAFF | APRIL 26, 2015

FLORENCE, Colo. — In an old mining town in the sandy foothills of the Rockies, a group of squat brick buildings is hidden behind high fences and coiled razor wire and guarded by roving patrols and sharpshooters in gun towers.

These heavily fortified buildings in the high desert house the US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, the nation’s highest-security prison, a so-called Supermax known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. The forbidding place, where the nation’s most violent offenders and terrorists are confined, is where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is likely to end up if just one of 12 jurors decides to sentence the convicted Marathon bomber to life in prison.

What distinguishes the ADX, as it’s known, from other federal prisons is that it was designed for solitary confinement. Many of the more than 400 prisoners are required to spend 23 hours a day alone in their 7-by-12-foot concrete cells, where they receive all their meals on trays slid through small holes in the steel doors, see limited natural light from a sliver of a window, and are permitted little contact with anyone other than guards and staff.

When prisoners are allowed out of their cells, they are escorted by multiple guards and are required to wear leg irons, handcuffs, and belly chains. Their recreation hour is usually spent in a small outdoor cage, which is surrounded by high gray walls with a view of the sky etched by barbed wire.

“The ADX is a far more stark environment than any other prison I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to all of the federal prisons,” said Robert Hood, who served as warden of the ADX between 2002 and 2005. “When I call it a clean version of hell, I mean that it’s squeaky clean and quiet, because everyone there is locked down. It’s a very abnormal environment.”

Tsarnaev could also be sent to the ADX if the jury sentences him to death, Hood and others said, but it’s more likely that the Federal Bureau of Prisons would assign him to the penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., where he could spend years, perhaps decades, among other death row inmates as his lawyers appeal his sentence. Since the federal government reinstated capital punishment in 1988 only three federal prisoners have been executed, out of 74 sentenced to death.

Tsarnaev could potentially have many more privileges and amenities if he is sent to Terre Haute. The prison there allows inmates, including some of those on death row, to congregate in “leisure activity” rooms, where they can play chess or cards, watch color TV, cook meals bought from the commissary in microwaves, and collaborate on art projects. If they are not put on special restrictions, they are permitted 300 minutes of nonlegal telephone calls a week and can send relatives e-mails. They can earn money in jobs as orderlies, borrow compact discs from the library to play on personal CD players, and use recreation areas that offer equipment such as stationary bicycles, treadmills, and computers.

At the ADX, life is much lonelier and more monotonous. Tsarnaev, if he is sent to the forbidding facility, would join other notorious prisoners such as Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph; Zacarias Moussaoui, who helped plan the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001; shoe bomber Richard Reid; and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center.

CHRIS MCLEAN/PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE

Guard towers loom over the federal facility in Florence, Colo., the highest-security prison in the United States and home to more than 400 prisoners.

The prison was initially designed as a place to modify the behavior of inmates who committed violence at other penitentiaries, allowing them additional privileges over a period of years and ultimately a transfer to another prison if they complied with the rules. But in more recent years it has also become a permanent home for those convicted of terrorism-related crimes.

Tsarnaev’s privileges in prison are already limited and are likely to continue to be strictly controlled after his sentencing by so-called special administrative measures, which restrict his contact with other people and must be approved once a year by the US attorney general.

The 21-year-old from Cambridge, who was convicted this month on all 30 charges of conspiring with his late brother to kill three people and injure 260 others near the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013 and also in the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer several days later, would likely end up in the ADX’s H Unit, which is reserved for prisoners who are subject to special restrictions on contact with others.

That would mean he would be confined to his cell 23 hours a day, allowed three showers a week, and likely be limited to one 15-minute call a month to one of a few relatives, which would be monitored. Visits, even with his attorneys, would have to be conducted through Plexiglas and by telephone. Even his letters would be strictly limited — in length and to whom he could write.

His cell, like all the other solitary units, would include an unmovable concrete stool, a concrete desk, and a concrete slab for a bed, with a thin foam mattress on top. He would have a combination sink-toilet and be allowed to buy a 10-inch black-and-white TV, which would let him watch major networks and some basic cable channels. Prison officials use televisions as leverage to control inmates’ behavior, threatening to remove them if prisoners fail to comply with the rules, Hood said.

US DISTRICT COURT, COLORADO

Supermax cells are fitted with immovable concrete furniture.

For one hour a day, Tsarnaev would have access to either an indoor recreation room with one pull-up bar, or the outdoor cage, where he could walk around and breathe fresh air. He would also have access to a library cart and could buy a limited number of items from the prison’s commissary, such as candy or toothpaste, though many of the items for sale could be barred to him by the special administrative measures.

“There have been some reports that the conditions at Guantanamo are better than at the ADX,” said Laura Rovner, an associate law professor at the University of Denver College of Law who has represented 10 prisoners at the ADX. She said no one has won a lawsuit against the prison by arguing that the conditions are unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.”

RELATED | Globe 2013 report: Fall of the House of Tsarnaev

She said the isolation is so overwhelming for prisoners that one of her clients befriended a wasp that somehow flew into his cell, feeding it and talking to it like a friend. Others have resorted to trying to communicate with fellow prisoners by yelling through vents and their cell’s plumbing.

She and others cited court documents showing that seven prisoners have committed suicide since the ADX opened in 1994, the last occurring in 2013, when a prisoner hanged himself with a bed sheet. No one has ever escaped.

“It’s a place that strips away your humanity,” she said. “It takes away the part of us that relates to other people, how we make sense of the world and attribute value.”

PHOTOS FROM US DISTRICT COURT, COLORADO

The interior of the US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility is stark, quiet, and very clean.

Fellow attorneys in Denver and Washington, D.C., filed a class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons in 2012, arguing that the prolonged solitary confinement at the ADX is cruel, especially for those prisoners with mental illnesses.

Those attorneys declined to speak on the record, citing the litigation. Officials from the Bureau of Prisons denied the Globe’s request to visit the ADX and would not answer any questions about the prison.

“As our primary focus at the ADX is on the day to day operations of the institution, there is, consequently, no allotted time for additional activities, to include personal interviews or tours,” wrote John Oliver, ADX’s warden, in a letter to the Globe.

The government and the attorneys have been discussing a potential settlement for more than a year. It could result in changes at the prison that could reduce the degree of isolation of prisoners like Tsarnaev.

“Those who designed this place made little effort to provide any more than what a zoo provides – shelter, food, water,” said Jamie Fellner, who monitors prisons for Human Rights Watch in New York and has toured the ADX twice. “Human beings are not designed to handle that amount of isolation.”

In a sworn statement as a part of a separate lawsuit filed against the Bureau of Prisons in 2011, Thomas Silverstein , who has spent more than three decades in solitary confinement after killing a guard at another federal prison, testified to the deprivation of going years without seeing “a single tree, a blade of grass, or any sign of nature.”

He described the outdoor recreation area at the ADX — where he can take 10 steps in either direction and 30 steps if he walks in a circle — as similar to standing “inside of a deep, empty swimming pool.”

“I couldn’t see any of the mountains, even though I knew they had to be close by,” he said.

He added: “Other than infrequent haircuts, strip searches, and medical examinations, the only physical human contact I have experienced in 28 years is when BOP officers handcuff me and escort me.”

US DISTRICT COURT, COLORADO

One exercise option for inmates is to walk in an outdoor cage.

Raymond Luc Levasseur, who spent nearly five years at the ADX after conducting a series of Marxist-inspired bombings around the United States, called the prison a “high-tech version of hell, designed to shut down all sensory perception.”

“Nobody can go through that experience without being scarred,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Maine. “It deadens you emotionally. You have to withdraw like a turtle into a shell.”

Levasseur, now 68, said his vision deteriorated significantly while at the ADX, but with so little to look at, he didn’t notice. His hearing, on the other hand, became more acute. He said it would get “deathly quiet,” and all he could hear was his heartbeat. Then the silence would be interrupted by the “huge racket” of the doors of his cell abruptly rolling open for regular sight checks by the guards.

“That produces paranoia,” he said.

He described the relatively antiseptic prison as “almost odorless,” except for the meals, which he said were mainly starchy foods like macaroni, potatoes, and cereals, with no second helpings allowed or wanted.

Outside the manicured grounds of the ADX, which is more than 5,000 feet above sea level and shares a campus with lower-security federal prisons, few neighbors seemed concerned about the potential arrival of another notorious convict.

In the city of nearly 4,000 people, where rusting trailers molder on cinder blocks and pawnshops hawk gold and guns, neighbors said they trust the security at the ADX.

“If Tsarnaev is going to end up in prison, I’d rather him there than anywhere else,” said Charlie Luckey, 36, whose small home is just across the desolate Highway 67. “Even if someone makes it over the fence, there are sharpshooters who would take care of him.”

Others said they were unconcerned, even if Tsarnaev somehow made it past all the remotely controlled doors, barbed wire, hundreds of cameras, and other electronic surveillance.

“We’ve got plenty of our own guns and ammo,” said Sharon McMahon, who helps manage the Super 8 motel next door to the ADX. “He wouldn’t make it far.”

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.

Unsung Hero

BAA medical director Aaron Baggish was one of the first responders.

By David Abel | GLOBE STAFF | APRIL 21, 2014

When he arrives shortly after dawn near the Hopkinton Common, a cool, misty air sweeps across the empty road. There are no water stations or spectators. The cheering section includes only his wife and two young children.

A week before the big race, and nearly a year after the most harrowing minutes of his life, Aaron Baggish and a fellow cardiologist who had been with him that day near the finish line set out to run their Boston Marathon.

The journey back to the city will require as much emotional stamina as physical, especially as the past blurs with the present.

No matter how much time has passed, the dark memories remain intense for the 38-year-old doctor from Cambridge, one of the race’s three medical directors and among the few first responders who has avoided speaking publicly about his experience.

Last April, Baggish had already been considered among the world’s leading experts on marathon-related deaths. But his experience overseeing a program for athletes at Massachusetts General Hospital had been confined to runners who had collapsed from heart issues, dehydration, or other ailments. None of that prepared him for what he experienced.

Now, hoping to reclaim the race for himself, Baggish is back on the starting line, reprising his annual tradition of running the route a week before the actual race.

After a kiss from his wife, Baggish and his friend start the long slog back to Boston, easing down the initial hill and moving swiftly toward Ashland. It’s overcast, with mild temperatures and a gentle breeze — ideal for running 26.2 miles.

It’s similar to the conditions a year before, when Baggish had time to putter around outside the medical tent on Marathon day. The cool, cloudy weather meant his staff was going to have it easy that day. He had little more to do than answer questions and walk the hundred yards or so to the finish line, where he kept watch for any problems with runners.

As Baggish and his friend pass into Framingham, the doctor thinks about some of the harder times he’s had on the route, which he’s run every year since 2002. He recalls how it was so hot in 2004 that he could see steam rise from the nearby train tracks. He also recalls the heat wave of 2012, when the temperatures soared to nearly 90 degrees on Marathon day, and he and his fellow volunteers worked nonstop to help care for a crush of patients.

“We thought we had seen Boston the worst it could get,” he says.

In Natick, Baggish meets his wife and children at a commuter rail station, where they’re waiting in a parking lot with water and big grins. They offer him high-fives, but his wife, Sylvia, who is six months pregnant, looks pensive.

“I then knew how connected she was with the complexity of this run for me,” he would say later.

When they pass through Natick Center, firefighters wave from their ladder engine as it rolls out of the station. Seeing them brings him back to the year before, when he stood in his blue and yellow windbreaker near the announcer’s booth, watching as the surge of charity runners trudged down Boylston Street. It was as peaceful a moment as ever at the Marathon, when all at once he felt the heat, saw the flash, and heard the massive blast — so close that he temporarily lost hearing in his right ear.

As they cross into Wellesley and near the halfway mark, Baggish picks up the pace, out of habit. The mile there is usually lined on Marathon day with screaming students from Wellesley College, but none of the usual kisses are on offer this morning. Baggish can run the course in under three hours, but he’s thinking more about the calendar than the clock.

On that terrible afternoon after the bombs exploded, Baggish was among the first to start ripping down the barricades. Through the smoke, he saw the glass shattered in the surrounding storefronts. He saw the blood all over the sidewalk. He saw the scattered body parts and heard the screaming.

More than anything, he recalls the overwhelming smell — the gunpowder and charred flesh, a stench he can’t forget.

On the long descent into Newton Lower Falls, Baggish’s legs still feel light and he skirts traffic to climb the hill over Route 128, perhaps the loneliest leg of the course. About a mile later, he and his friend turn onto Commonwealth Avenue by the Newton Fire Station and see the rows of daffodils that have been planted along the course to bloom for this year’s Marathon. A chilly rain begins to fall as he climbs the succession of slopes that culminate with Heartbreak Hill, where he finds his family waiting with more water.

As he hugs his 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, he’s thankful they were too young to understand what happened last year, what he did, and the terror he has to live with.

Baggish recalls how, after the barricades were cleared, he began looking for those who needed his help the most. Immediately, he saw one woman suffering from catastrophic wounds. She was conscious and her eyes were open, but she was clearly taking her last breaths. He took off his belt and tied it around her pelvis. He did CPR as her pulse faded. He told her everything would be OK, even though he knew it wouldn’t be. He kept working to save Krystle Campbell until a firefighter relieved him, and then he moved on to help others.

On their way down to Boston College, with the Prudential Tower on Boylston Street now visible in the distance, the rain has become heavy, helping to blot the tears. His hamstrings tighten as he plods through the haunted mile and down to Cleveland Circle, only 4 miles from the finish line.

“I now realized in full that this run was my chance to get my Boston Marathon back,” he would say later.

As Baggish makes his way through Coolidge Corner in Brookline, over the Massachusetts Turnpike and toward Hereford Street, he feels twinges of anger — what he calls “seething reminders” — at how a race that means so much to him has been irrevocably changed, at how it left him rattled. He recalls the sleepless nights, breaking down in front of an audience while giving a routine talk, even losing his breakfast after a starting cannon caught him off guard at a later race.

He also recalls the screams, and how they guided him to who needed help urgently.

While officers shouted for everyone to stay alert to potential secondary devices, Baggish spent those long minutes using anything he could find to use as tourniquets, including a shoelace and the lanyard of a medal from the race. In all, he tied some eight tourniquets and only left when police escorted him back to the medical tent, his hands and clothes drenched in blood, his Marathon indelibly stained.

When he finally turns onto Boylston Street, Baggish speeds up to a near sprint. He’s now running alone, through traffic, strong and serene.

The barricades and the media bridge are back up and officers begin blocking traffic as they watch him approach, his resolve clear.

When the medical director finally crosses the finish line, the tears are heavy. He kneels on the faded yellow paint for a long moment, oblivious to the traffic, which officers direct around him.

Afterward, he slides through an opening in the barricades, and sits on the sidewalk in front of Marathon Sports, where he tried to save Krystle Campbell.

The memories flood into his mind even more now. He recalls how he never removed his sunglasses that day, because he was too afraid to make eye contact with the victims. He considers what has changed, and what hasn’t.

He feels good about his decision to return to the medical tent this Monday. There are thousands of additional runners and a lot of lingering anxieties.

His help will be needed more than ever.

“There’s no place that I’m more destined to be,” he says.

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.