Boston carnage: Yorkshire tourists caught up in blasts horror

Some 19 entrants from the region were among 282 British competitors in the race according to its official website.

Sheffield Hallam University student Anthony Meenaghan, 22, told the Yorkshire Post how he finished the race just 10 minutes before the first blast, which tore through a spectator area just a few hundred yards away from him.

“I was just walking out and had got my medal and blanket wrapped around me when I heard the first explosion,” he said.

“I looked around and saw smoke and then another one went off.”

The architectural technology student described how “panic and screaming” then broke out.

“From how loud the explosions were you just knew something wasn’t right,” he said.

“There were a couple of seconds of silence then people started shouting and screaming.”

Mr Meenaghan, was taking part in the race with his father, also named Anthony, who had fallen a few miles behind him.

“He got stopped at mile 25 by the police and had to stand there with thousands of other runners for about 45 minutes,” he said.

“All of those people didn’t finish and didn’t have cell phones.

“Luckily I knew he was far enough back that he wasn’t right behind me and he would be okay.”

Most people who were injured had been spectators, he said.

“The bombs were in bins at the finish line, which is just terrible,” he said.

“I didn’t see anyone hurt but I was watching it on the news last night and you see three are dead and all the people with shrapnel injuries and that was very sad.”

Mr Meenaghan, originally from Nottinghamshire, said the area around the scene remained “locked down” and he would be staying away for the next few days.

The student, who has been in the Massachusetts city on a work placement since September, said everyone was in shock.

“Boston is a great city and no one saw this coming,” said Mr Meenaghan, who was raising money for the National MS Society.

“The Boston marathon is just like London’s - it’s a massive part of the city. To attack a marathon is very sad.”

There had been a “great response” by the people of Boston to the tragedy, he added.

“Volunteers ran in, the emergency services were right there,” he said.

“All the runners left on the course, families and local people were taking them to come in their houses, and bars and hotels were taking people in.”

Morley firefighter Jeremy Hughes had also been standing just yards from the finish line, where he was supposed to be meeting his wife, but at the last minute they arranged to meet around the corner instead.

The couple were walking to the subway when they heard the first explosion.

Mr Hughes, 47, who was raising money for The Firefighters Charity, said: “I said straight away that sounds like a bomb and then we heard a second one.

“My wife is very shook up but we are out here until Thursday evening and no terrorists are going to spoil our day, don’t let them get the better of you.”

Another Leeds runner, Jonathan Ball, 37, said he and his wife Shelley, 35, who had been cheering him on, were “very shaken, but okay”.

Mr Ball, who finished the race in just under three hours - around an hour before the blasts - told friends via Twitter that they were safe but still evacuated from their hotel with limited access to phones and the internet.

“Shocked and saddened by the tragic events here in Boston,” wrote Mr Ball.

“My heart goes out to all those families affected.”

Mr Ball and his wife - who had completed the Boston 5k the previous day - are understood to live in Rothwell.

Another West Yorkshire runner, dentist Geoffrey Baggaley, who lives in Menston and has a practice in Guiseley, said the scenes that had unfolded were “horrid, unbelievable really”.

The 54-year-old, who was taking part with friend Deborah Holmes, 53, also from Menston, said he had been sat in a “sort of stupor” after finishing the race in around three hours and 20 minutes when he heard the explosions.

“They just sounded like two big claps of thunder,” he told BBC Radio Leeds.

“We didn’t really know what it was for about five or 10 minutes then all of a sudden you saw all the lights flashing and people just running all over the place and it just got worse and worse.”

Mr Baggaley said he had been “very near” to where the bombs went off after crossing through the barriers.

“As soon as we saw the pictures on the news later we saw all that area we had been in was completely demolished,” he said.

He added: “It’s a very, very strange experience because yes I’m pleased that I finished and it has always been one of my ambitions to come to Boston and do this marathon because it’s one of the world’s classics.

“But there is obviously a very empty feeling in the city and the hotel we’re staying in and it’s just a feeling of overwhelming sadness in the whole place.”

The other Yorkshire runners signed up to take part in the race included three others from Leeds; two from Ilkley; two from Richmond; and one each from Harrogate, York, Skipton, Sheffield and Barnsley; according to the Boston Athletic Association’s website.