Sobbing, Shaking, Pandemonium: Witness Describes Boston Terrorist Attack

A very prominent businessman in Boston invited me to a restaurant named Abe and Louie’s at the finish line of the marathon. The whole front of the restaurant opens to the street so you can view the marathon runners as they go by. We were at the first table in the front of the restaurant just enjoying ourselves. Everyone was eating and drinking and having a wonderful day.

All of the sudden we heard the most awful explosion that I have ever witnessed in my life.

As soon as we heard the explosion, we knew it was something serious. We knew a building or a car had blown up—or something. The whole restaurant shook. We all stood up and walked to the front of the restaurant to see what was going on. As we were standing there looking, literally within seconds, the second bomb went off right in front of us. Debris came in at us through the front of the restaurant.

The sound was something I’ll never forget. It was an explosion that I can’t describe. You’d have to hear it. There was a thick cloud of black smoke. Pandemonium broke out in the restaurant. All the tables were knocked over. You could hear glasses breaking. People started to panic.

As the dust started to settle we saw a little boy whose leg was literally blown off. There was blood. It was disgusting and nauseating and frightening. We saw the boy’s father. His leg was burned. His pants were literally burned from his body. It was totally nauseating.  We couldn’t get near the boy. Police wouldn’t let us near him.

At this point, everybody in the restaurant was panic-stricken. They ran to the back of the restaurant. But there was nowhere to go. Everyone was stuck in the kitchen. We were screaming, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” We were trying to calm down the people in the kitchen, telling them it was going to be OK. Finally, they opened the rear doors of the restaurant and everybody, little by little, started to run out. People were starting to get trampled. We told them to calm down and slow down and we tried to usher them out in an orderly fashion.

Then I realized that the gentleman I was with, who is a major developer in the Boston area, wasn’t with me. I went back to find him and he was sobbing inconsolably. He just kept saying, “Did you see what happened to that little boy?” I told him I saw it and that I was sorry, but that we had to get out of there. I literally had to drag him out of the restaurant. He was frozen with grief from what he had witnessed.

I was finally able to get my friend out of there. We went out the back door into the alley. There were police outside screaming, “Run! Run! Go! Run! Run!” There were literally thousands of people running away toward the Charles River. We got stuck in back alleys running, trying to get to a main thoroughfare. After two blocks of running full out, we stopped. We didn’t know where we were running to. At this point, all of the cell phones were shut down because authorities were concerned that someone could detonate another bomb using their cell phone. We couldn’t use our cell phones to call anyone.

I wasn’t part of 9/11, and by no means was this anything close to 9/11. However, I got a taste and feel of what must have happened that day with the pandemonium in the streets. People were crying and sobbing and shaking. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. 

Bobby Inello is a Christian businessman from Boston. He is also a member of Benny Hinn’s board of directors.