As the two bomb blasts ripped through the crowd at the finish line of Monday’s Boston Marathon, Soda Springs resident David George was celebrating having just run the race for the first time and could have easily been a casualty of the explosions less than a football field away.

    Veteran marathoner Penny Parrish of Pocatello had finished the race an hour earlier and was headed back to her hotel on Boston’s outskirts.

    Franklin resident Dotty Maddock, who’s deaf, had no idea why race organizers were ordering her and other runners to stop. Tari Jensen, who lives north of Pocatello, was terribly concerned about family members in Boston for the race. And Idaho State University Communications and Marketing Director Mark Levine, who was raised in Worcester, Mass., near Boston, was frantically phoning family and friends back home to make sure they were OK.

    About 90 Idahoans participated in Monday’s Boston Marathon. As of 10 p.m. Monday there were no known cases of any of them being injured by the bombs, despite some very close calls.

    George, age 60, had just crossed the finish line and went to get his gym bag when he heard the first explosion. “It sounded like a firework mortar going off,” he said. “Within a few seconds, the second explosion took place and I saw the smoke just pour out. We knew we needed to get out of there and from where I was, there was no panic. The (nearby) subway was closed, so everybody had to walk. We didn’t get any information at the time, but everybody seemed to know what was happening.”

    The 31-year-old Parrish, a previous women’s winner of the Pocatello Marathon, was running her second Boston Marathon. A strong finish meant she had already cleared the finish line when the bombs went off.

    “We did not find out about it until we were texted by a friend asking us if we were all right,” Parrish said. “We want everyone to know right now that even though we are shocked and shaken up, we are physically OK and will be coming back home on Wednesday, just like we had planned.”

    Jensen found out shortly after the bombs exploded that her brother-in-law, Robert “Terry” Jensen, and her sister Marsha were all right.

    “(Robert) told me that he was about 20 minutes behind the blasts,” Tari said. “I found out through a text that they were OK, but I was still very scared.”

    The Monday afternoon explosions, seconds apart and believed to be a terrorist attack, left three confirmed dead including a child and more than 140 injured.

    Media reports and Facebook posts throughout the day provided assurances that all the Eastern Idaho participants in the marathon had survived the explosions.

    Pocatellans Lowell Hawkes, 70, and Josie Magee, 47, reported they were uninjured. Hawkes was still running, about a mile from the finish line, when the bombs detonated.

    Chubbuck residents Natalie Bitton, 30, and Kim Evans, 33, ran the race and were not hurt by the blasts either. Evans had finished shortly before the explosions occurred.

    Ten Idaho Falls residents ran the marathon, including Karen Smith, 46, who crossed the finish line less than a minute before the detonations. She posted on her Facebook page that she was miraculously unscathed.

    Craig Hudman, 38, of Shelley, also ran the race without suffering any injuries.

    The 58-year-old Maddock, who resides in Franklin along the Idaho-Utah border, was nearly finished running the marathon when the bombs exploded. She’s deaf and didn’t hear the blasts or understand why race organizers were ordering her to stop. She sent her husband a text message asking what was going on.

“She didn’t even realize why she was being pulled off the course,” her husband Herb said late Monday afternoon. “She said, ‘What happened?’ So I texted her that there were bombs at the finish line.”

    The terrorist attack struck very close to home for ISU’s Levine, who spent his youth in the Boston area.

    “My family is all right and no friends were hurt or involved in the situation,” Levine said. “I am in shock and disbelief right now, though. It’s a very sad commentary that people cannot attend a public event without worrying about something like this happening. We are assumed to be safe and we are not used to things happening like this. It happens in Israel, but it’s the last thing in the world you would have expected in the United States.”

    Parrish said the bombing ruined a “perfect day.”

    “I had a very good run and we were enjoying a beautiful experience and now this. It’s so sad and has changed the whole atmosphere of this great event,” she said. “This really stinks. People were enjoying themselves on a bright clear day.”

    George said he’s not sure what authorities could have done to keep the bombing from happening.

    “People were elbow to elbow,” he said. “There were people lined up the entire 26 miles of the race. The bombs went off at the end of the race, but it could have happened anywhere along the route and caused just as many casualties. It was pretty upsetting and such a tragedy, but I honestly do not know how they can protect so many people in these kinds of races. And there are marathons all over the country.”

    Parrish agreed. “I hate to think that we will have to look over our shoulder every place we go. The police there had already taken a lot of precautions, but someone managed to get through,” she said.

    Levine added, “Unfortunately, no matter how many checks and balances you have for events like this, if someone is hell-bent on doing something like this, they will probably be able to do it. You just cannot protect everyone at these kinds of affairs.”

    Tari Jensen said her brother-in-law and other runners in his group were detained for almost six hours because of the police and FBI investigations.

    “He said when the bomb went off (Boston police) shut down everything, including the cell phone grid, so (Robert and his group) could not contact anyone,” Tari said. “The weather was very cold and they were all dressed in light clothing, so people in surrounding buildings began to bring out coats and blankets for them. (Robert) indicated that this tragic event will change this race — and others like it — forever. That’s one of the sad things about this.”