Hero Doctor From Last Year’s Boston Marathon Terror Attack Plans to Run Again

HEMMER: "Dr. Natalie Stavas is a pediatrician who was several hundred yards from finishing her 10th Boston marathon. That is when the race stopped in front of her."
STAVAS: "I was with my father and we were running and we heard the explosions. I thought they were fireworks. My dad thought it was thunder. What we heard, like, permeating through the crowd and the chaos was 'bombs,' 'explosion,' someone said 'sniper.' It was mass chaos, utter confusion. And, one thing was very clear, that people were injured at the finish line."
HEMMER: "Her marathon was over. But as a doctor she continued to run."
STAVAS: "I couldn't get up to Boylston because of the police and the spectators and the chaos. So I look a left on Public Alley 443."
HEMMER: "So this is the alley, and the race is happening just the next street over?"
STAVAS: "Right, just the next street over is Boylston Street."
HEMMER: "You're almost down with the race and you hear this explosion and you run toward it."
STAVAS: "I did. I ran towards it. But honestly, I did not know what I was running towards. And how, how could know, how could I fathom something so evil?"
HEMMER: "What she found were people gravely wounded."
STAVAS: "The first one that I saw was a young woman on the ground. And lots of people were gathered around her. And I actually started CPR on her, trying to save her life. And, we found, I found out later that she tragically passed away."
HEMMER: "But you're not trained, although you're a doctor, you're not trained in triage? You're not trained for this?"
STAVAS: "There is something inside you though, maybe it is instinct, maybe it's because I am a physician, maybe it was because I was a nurse before I was a physician and I have worked with the sick and the injured. Whatever it was, it kicked in and I just knew I had to try to do something."
HEMMER: "Do you ever think it could happen again?"
STAVAS: "I do think it could happen again. But I think that the importance realization that most of Boston and most of the world is trying to come to, is that we can't live in fear, because living in fear just paralyzes us. If we lived in fear we would never run again.
HEMMER: "Do you think that day changed you? And if you do, how did it change you?"
STAVAS: "That day completely changed my view for me what it means to be a physician. It has changed my perception and even my outlook what I want to do with my life. I am along a completely different path now than before the marathon."
HEMMER: "And today she is running her 11th Boston marathon, with her father next to her just like last year."
STAVAS: "For me closure with what happened last year is still 26.2 miles away. So I think for me finishing the race this year and probably for my father as well, we'll be able to close that chapter of our lives and, start the chapter moving forward after the Boston 2014."