SWAMPSCOTT — “I am so grateful to be alive,” Carrie Gallugi said as she recalled witnessing the Boston Marathon bomb blasts and leading six local girls away from the devastation.
For Swampscott resident Gallugi, a fun, sunny day spent shopping on Newbury Street with the girls on Monday turned into a dash to safety through smoke and carnage.
“It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. All I could think of was, I was responsible for these six children,” Gallugi said.
Gallugi had just bought hats for the girls in the Nike store within sight of the Marathon finish line when the first bomb exploded. Through the store’s front window she could see “chaos and mayhem,” and heard people screaming.
“The employees yelled, ‘Everyone get out,’” Gallugi said.
Gallugi ran out of the store with the girls just before the second bomb went off. She turned to the girls, ages 9 to 12, and told them, “Hold onto me and run.”
Gallugi led the six down Newbury Street and onto Beacon Street, before making her way to the Charles River. The girls wept but obeyed Gallugi’s commands to stay close to her.
“What kept me focused was their safety. The only thing I thought was, ‘I am not going to let anything happen to these girls,’” she said.
The group followed paths along the river up to the Museum of Science where the girls’ parents met up with them. The parents, through Gallugi, declined to identify the children.
Gallugi said her friend and veteran Marathon runner, Hannah Gursky, was among the runners halted short of the Marathon finish line by emergency workers. Gursky, a teacher at the Knowledge is Power Program charter school, ran the Marathon Monday to raise money for The Liver Foundation on behalf of an ill student.
Gallugi is teaching in a Boston school next year and is spending this year earning an advanced degree and babysitting two of the girls she brought into Boston Monday. She said the aftermath of Monday’s attack left her exhausted but determined to attend the Marathon next year.
“I will be there 100 percent. This is not going to make me fearful. Will it make me more aware? Absolutely, but in the midst of all this chaos, there was all this goodness,” she said.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
