DentReps - The Dental Jobs Site Gives Back!

Don’t Ever Forget. Boston Strong. America Strong. One Strong.
April 15, 2015 - PRLog -- It was a beautiful, warm, sunny, Monday Spring morning, yet ironically it was also time to pay Uncle Sam – April 15th 2013!  I had “run” Boston a year earlier for the second time, but with the recent move back home to Boston, the complications and dealings of personal matters and simply the demands of managing your own business, DentReps – The Dental Jobs Site (http://www.dentreps.com/), 2013 was not going to be my third Boston Marathon (http://www.baa.org/).

I headed into the city early with my wife so we could walk the dog on Commonwealth Avenue, engage in some of the excitement and passion of the early crowds, and enjoy the morning before I had to head to a few DentReps meetings (http://www.dentreps.com/) and she to meet up with a friend to watch her first Boston Marathon. At the same time, a friend from college whom I had not seen in over 15 years, gathered with six friends at the Red Sox game and then socialized at a local restaurant after to also enjoy the day’s events and cheer on the crowd at the finish line, as did many friends, I am sure.

Without going into many details, my wife had been injured and lost function of her hand in an unforeseen event just two years earlier almost to the day. She had and continues to have a constant struggle with severe pain and lack of mobility with her dominant hand and arm. Having just arrived in Boston months earlier with the same questionable expression of “WOW!” and “What language are these people speaking?” - Bostonian that is - as the Pilgrims did 400 years earlier, there was no better day to show off my hometown, our hometown, and Boston Pride, than Marathon Monday.

Marathon Monday is a holiday in Boston only comparable to St. Patrick’s Day, although the Red Sox (http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=bos) are in town and thousands of families and friends, from near and far, come out to share what they later will refer to as simply, great memories! On this day every year, everyone is a Bostonian! North Shore, South Shore; Boston College, Boston University; Maine, Connecticut; Republicans, Democrats; Irish, Italians; MIT, Harvard;  Red Sox fans, Yankees fans … all right, I may have gone too far!

It was exactly 2:45 and I had just finished my first radio interview with Dr. Marc Cooper of the Mastery Company (http://masterycompany.com/); I couldn’t have been more thrilled at the outcome and, in turn, the progression of my business, DentReps – The Dental Jobs Site (http://www.dentreps.com/). At the very same moment, my wife and her friend had just left cash on their lunch bill because the waitress had not been seen for almost 30 minutes because of how busy the restaurant was. My friend, Heather, and her group, had just decided to make their move out of another restaurant and head closer to the finish line.

Four minutes later at 2:49, with an extra hop in my step, I began gathering my items to head into town to catch up with my wife and a group of friends that had planned on meeting.  It was only then did life seem to stop for a brief moment.

My phone rang. It was my wife probably wondering how my call went and when I would be in town. Instead, I answered the phone only to hear the yelling, the screaming, the chaos, the garble of extended cell phone coverage, and my wife screaming, breathing extremely heavy, and crying that a bomb had just gone off. Seconds later, I heard it … a massive explosion in the distance on the other end of the phone. The chaos grew louder and my wife became silent … NOTHING, for what seemed like eternity.

Then I heard in a scratchy, nervous voice, “We are okay, we are running down an alley close to Newbury Street following some people! I will call you when I know where we end up. Love you …”, and then a dial tone. I rushed to the car and tried calling over and over and over again, only to get a message that all circuits were busy.

From the car, I started turning on all of the news stations only to hear traffic and sports updates, but no mention of a bomb or even an incident. I still drove like hell in what I referred to as “White Lightening”; my 1996 white Honda Accord with 160,000+ miles that never took no for an answer from the gas pedal. Within 20 minutes and 31 miles later (a ride that typically takes almost an hour), White Lightening got me to the Boston Common, where I parked and ran the additional mile to the finish line where I last heard from my wife.

I was calling everyone I knew that had even the slightest knowledge that my wife and her friend were in town, telling them, including her parents, she was okay; although I really didn’t know and regardless of what was all over the television, and not just locally. No one knew!  And my friend Heather, strangers Matt Chatham, former New England Patriots (http://www.patriots.com/) lineman, and his wife, Erin, carried her to safety away from the direction of the bombs and saw her to an ambulance. She, like 263 others had just been severely injured from the second blast and eventually lost her leg, while, three lost their lives and eventually a 4th trying to protect the students on MIT’s campus.

I finally had made contact with my wife and our friends who were heading to safety, but the scene was barren (see photo below). Just then, two more explosions had erupted in the odd, eerie sky, only to learn later that the authorities were apparently detonating suspicious packages.

The city felt like a war zone. We waited in a hotel lobby where families anxiously waited for their loved ones to simply walk up the escalator stairs, not knowing if they were okay, injured, or even possibly dead.

Seconds turned in minutes, minutes turned into hours, hours turned in days. Families in surrounding communities, including Watertown, MA, were held hostage by stupidity and arrogance. Children were held at bay from playing or going to school. And families had to endure the troubling task of lying awake at night with baseball bats by their side in the event their homes were invaded. Some remained in the hospital, bedside to their friends and loved ones, wondering what was next.

My sister and brother-in-law, who lived in the thick of it, were in a 24-hour lock-down with their two boys. My sister had to explain to her 3-year-old son at the time that Batman, Robin and their friends were dressed up like policemen with riot gear and had to search their house because there was a bad person out there (see photos). Images no child in this country or elsewhere should ever have to endure.

Two years ago today, America was shamefully attacked with the same aggression and futility that has continued for thousands of years, but for only a few times on American soil; including tragic events now known as Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and Boston Strong (http://www.onefundboston.org/).  We can never forget; the world can never forget.  We can only rest when tragedy and loss of life for selfish reasons, ceases to exist.

I send this out at 2:49pm, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, tax day, Boston Strong Day for the senseless loss of life and injuries for those affected by what was a tragic event. A day that has now been turned into a celebration of life for all of the right reasons without losing the thought of others who lost their life or lost a part of their life from injury!

For this and on behalf of all DentReps – The Dental Jobs Site Members (http://www.dentreps.com/), both employers and job seekers, DentReps – The Dental Jobs Site is donating a portion of our revenue to Heather Abbott and her foundation, the Heather Abbott Foundation (http://www.heatherabbottfoundation.org/), which helps provide customized prostheses to those who have suffered limb loss.

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Page Updated Last on: Apr 16, 2015



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