Southern Nevadans, participating in Boston Marathon, relate explosion aftermath

It sounded like thunder.

“It was like the loudest kind of thunder you ever heard,” Marcus Smith said.

But when the Las Vegas lawyer looked up for the source of the boom, he saw nothing but the clear Boston sky. A second boom came seconds later, and that’s when he knew it wasn’t thunder.

Smith and his wife, runner Chelsey Smith, had been walking to a gym around the corner for her post-race shower.

After the explosions, they turned and walked away, trying to distance themselves from the crowds. They stopped in stores and bars along the way, catching the news and trying to stay warm, before getting a cab to their hotel.

They fielded calls from frantic family members, talked to their worried children, ages 7, 6 and 4, on video chat and tried to make sense of what had happened.

“We said a prayer and hugged each other and haven’t really had the nerve to turn on the TV and see the damage or what happened to those poor people,” said Chelsey Smith, 29.

Like many others who finished the race unscathed, the couple pondered what could have been had Chelsey Smith been just a little slower than her finish time of 3 hours, 43 minutes, 47 seconds.

“Ten or 15 minutes could have made the difference for us,” she said. “It’s very startling to know how close that was.”

Kathleen Langin, another of the roughly 40 Southern Nevadans running in the marathon, was in a changing room when she heard the first explosion.

“Someone said, ‘Was it thunder?’ ” she said. “I said, ‘I don’t know.’ Then I heard it again.”

Langin, 50, said runners soon learned that a pair of bombs in trash bins near the finish line had exploded. She finished the 26.2-mile race in 3:41:13, shortly before the bombs detonated.

She and her husband, who was observing the race, quickly took a subway train to their hotel near the airport. She said the noise of news helicopters and police sirens quickly overwhelmed.

“We wanted to get the hell out of there,” Langin said. “Very scary. I was nearby. Just down the street from it.”

Las Vegan Tiffanie Gaspar was exhausted from crossing the finish line 25 minutes earlier when she heard two explosions.

Gaspar, 35, also was unsure what she heard from the family-waiting area about a block away from the chaos.

She and others thought it was fireworks from a nearby Boston Red Sox game.

“It was such a positive experience for most of the day,” Gaspar said. “I can say I’ve done this. Now it will be this is the year people died.”

The marathon was Gaspar’s fourth and her first at the iconic race in Boston.

Gaspar initially was separated from her family, but her husband was able to reach her on his cellphone .

Her family decided to leave Boston on a subway and head toward their hotel, about 30 minutes outside the city.

In the subway system, Gaspar noticed an increased police presence. One officer directed commuters to watch their belongings and notify security of any unattended bags.

Hillary Brimhall, 31, had finished the race and was walking to her hotel with husband Josh Brimhall when they noticed a bunch of police cars speed by. But they didn’t think anything of it until getting a text message from a relative asking if they were OK.

Hillary Brimhall, a third-grade teacher at Twitchell Elementary School who owns the Red Rock Running Company stores with her husband, said it was a sad day for the sport. But the day’s events wouldn’t stop her or her husband, both avid runners, from competing again.

“Runners will always run,” she said.

Matt Paxton, 38, of Henderson said in a Facebook message that he finished the race early and was at his hotel room when he learned of the explosions.

“So tragic,” he wrote. Paxton was the top Southern Nevada finisher, in 2:50:41 — about an hour before the explosions.

The husband of Neisha Rygg, a 35-year-old Henderson runner, said his wife sent him a text message indicating she was OK.

Rygg was evacuated without any belongings aside from her purse and cellphone , and the phone’s battery was nearly drained, Maury Rygg said.

“She told me she saw dead victims and dismembered people and lots of blood and debris,” he said.

Derek Meeks, 49, hadn’t even received his medal after crossing the finish line when he felt the blast.

“I saw the smoke. I felt it. To me there was no question it was a bomb,” the Henderson resident said.

Meeks, a doctor who works at the Boulder City Hospital, considered turning to help in the chaos. But the police and race officials weren’t letting anyone back, plus he had limped across the finish line after battling cramps for the last hour of the race, he said.

“To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have been much help,” he said.

He spent the next hour walking around police roadblocks to reach a friend’s hotel two blocks from the finish. After showering and changing there, he walked five miles to a public train station for a ride to his hotel in Natick, about 20 miles outside the city.

There he reunited with his wife, parents and two sisters, who had come for a week long family vacation. After cheering Meeks at Mile 10 of the race, they had gone to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.

But they didn’t see much. Officials evacuated and closed the library after a fire there. Authorities were investigating a possible link with the marathon bombings.

Langin, a nurse, said she and her husband are supposed to leave Boston tonight , but their flight may be delayed. She said she has received dozens of text messages from people she hasn’t heard from in years asking if she was OK.

The veteran runner has more than 30 marathons on her resume. Monday’s race was her seventh Boston Marathon.

“Never have I seen anything like this,” she said.

Gaspar said Monday’s explosions might keep her away from Boston.

“We have been talking about doing it next year,” she said. “Now I’m not sure.”

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.