Ballymena man tells of relief after escaping Boston bomb blast

Former world welterweight boxing champion Eamonn Loughran, who had been competing in the race, had arranged to meet his wife, Angela, by the flags at the finish line, exactly where the first device exploded.

The Frys Road man told how he prayed for three hours as he waited for his wife after the two bomb blasts.

He said he went back to his hotel, where he walked up and down and cried.

“I was thinking the worst because I knew that’s where I told her to be,” he said.

“I was looking at the TV, I was watching the TV to see.

“My wife was the only one that hadn’t come back.”

Mr Loughran said they both burst out crying when she walked in through the hotel door.

“She was worried about me and I was so relieved, thankful to God,” added Eamonn, who had been accompanied on the trip to Boston by Ballymena Runners club-mate Tom Mills and his wife Jeanette.

It is understood that Tom, a long-standing member of Ballymena Runners athletics club, had completed the course in around three hours.

Eamonn, however, had finished the event in around four hours - about 10 minutes before the first of the explosions.

Writing on Facebook, Tom said that the hotel in which he and Jeanette were staying was full of police and FBI officers as the investigation into the blasts continue.

“Jeanette and I have been interviewed by Boston Homicide and photos around Mile 26 have been handed over as potential evidence.

“(I’m) just relieved that not more people were killed,” added Tom, who expressed sympathy to the families of the dead and injured.