Tewksbury Nurse, 'It Was Like A War Zone'

Nurse Kim Giroux was working in Medical Tent A at the finish line of the Boston Marathon at roughly 2:50 p.m.

She was tending to an Army Veteran who, along with a group of comrades, had just traversed the entire length of the marathon course in full gear, including fatigues, full backpack, combat boots and photos of brothers-in-arms who had never made it back home.

Moments later, back-to-back bomb blasts in Copley Square triggered instincts in both heroes and spurred them to the duties for which they'd been trained.

"The ground shook from the explosion. Someone said maybe it was a transformer but I said, 'no way.' There was no doubt what it was," said Giroux, a pediatric nurse and nursing professor at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner.

Giroux, a Tewksbury resident, said the explosion caused the soldier to jump from his stretcher and she had a hard time getting him to stay put.

"I said, 'it's not your job right now.' He said, 'you don't understand, this is my job,'" she said. "I said, 'I do understand. But you need to understand that it's my job to take care of you.'"

"My first thought was, oh, my God, I need to stay calm. This is no time to lose your head," she recalled.

In moments, Tent A transformed from a post-race triage unit, dealing with dehydration and the loss of electrolytes, to a full-blown trauma unit. Scores of casualties were brought in for emergency care. It was unlike anything the seasoned nurse had ever experienced.

"I had worked in an ER, so I'd seen (traumatic) injuries, but nothing like this. There was just lots and lots and lots of damage," said Giroux. "There were two people who were (declared) dead in Tent A. There were traumatic amputations, one man with both legs blown off by the explosion. There were people impaled by metal and glass -- compound fractures. It was like a war zone."

When children began being brought in for treatment, Giroux turned her attention toward them, putting her skills as a pediatric nurse to good use. When she turned back toward her soldier, he and his comrades were gone. They had left the tent and gone to work in the blast zone, helping with the efforts to clear the area and rescue the injured.

Giroux said she had heard the early casualty estimates of two dead and more than 60 injured. But she said just going by the victims she attended to, she expect those numbers to increase.

This was Giroux's first time volunteering her nursing services at the Marathon. She said it was something she had always wanted to do. And despite her experiences, she said she will definitely be back to do her job in 2014.