By Natalie Covate
BU News Service

Panicha Imsomboon, a BU journalism graduate student, stood on Boylston Street at the final stretch of the Boston Marathon track when she heard a bomb to her left.

“I turned to the first explosion just like everyone did,” she said. “I saw the smoke, probably as high as the buildings there. Just a few seconds after that, I heard another explosion.”

After the second bomb, the crowd began to leave. Imsomboon walked with the crowd for half a block.

“After I stopped walking, a kid, maybe three or four years old, started crying,” she said. “At first, his parents thought he was shocked. Then, they found out that one of his legs was injured.”

The parents were trying to call an ambulance when an ambulance drove past them.

“In the end, the mother carried her boy and ran to find the ambulance,” Imsomboon said.

Imsomboon continued moving with the crowd when a woman with a neck injury walked up beside her.

“She had to lay down on the sidewalk,” Imsomboon said. “The blood was coming out of her neck. A friend of hers tried to hold her hand. All of us, including me, tried to yell at the ambulance because at the time she looked really bad.”

Imsomboon handed the woman a scarf to serve as a bandage.

“I know my scarf might not be clean enough,” Imsomboon said, “but it was the best thing I could find.”

Imsomboon made it safely back to her apartment near Boston University. She has no injuries other than a buzzing in her ears. She was a member of a student team reporting the marathon. She was covering fashion at the finish line of the marathon.