Wearing a white T-shirt with the words “Roseann Strong” in bright orange letters, Boston Marathon bombing survivor Roseann Sdoia made her way home Tuesday morning, after a grand send-off at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital that included a three-engine escort from the Boston Fire Department.
The milestone came almost exactly one month after the April 15 explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 260 people. Sdoia had attended that day’s Red Sox game at Fenway Park and headed over to Copley Square to watch the rest of the marathon when she was caught up in one of the two explosions.
On Tuesday, Sdoia spoke to reporters in the lobby of the new Spaulding Hospital in the Charlestown Navy Yard before making her way outside on crutches and climbing into a friend’s waiting car.
“I’m doing really good. I’m excited to go home,” Sdoia said. “I’m definitely going to miss this place, but I’m excited to go home.”
Asked how she expects life to change once she leaves the hospital, Sdoia said she plans to take it “day by day.”
“I’m just trying to get back to my normal life and routine,” she said.
Sdoia said she expects to be return to Spaulding in about two weeks for a follow-up appointment and to get fitted for a prosthetic leg.
“Tomorrow, I get my staples out of both legs, which I’m looking forward to. […] Then it’s really just trying to see how every day goes. I used to run, and I’m hoping at some point through the prosthetic process I get back to running,” she said.
As for how she is doing emotionally since the day of the bombings, Sdoia said she thinks she’s OK.
“My philosophy has always been, and if you ask my friends, I look at it as things happen for a reason and once it’s happened you just have to move forward, because that’s what it is. There’s no way or no reason to look back and say why did this happen or just focus on the negative. At this point, I just have to look forward,” she said.
Sdoia thanked the many people who had helped save her life and get her to that point—several of which stood beside her as she got ready to go home, including Northeastern University student Shores Salter, who came across an injured Sdoia in the aftermath of the bombing and helped get her off the street, using a belt as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding on her right leg.
“I have the best support system that helped me that day. It was a bad situation, but it really was amazing how things lined up,” Sdoia said. “I have Shores here who picked me up off the sidewalk, telling me I had to get out of there, and knowing I couldn’t move he carried me to the street so that I would get help. And [BPD] Officer Shana [Cottone] really helped keep me focused and kept holding my hand, telling me I was going to be OK.”
Also on the scene that day was Boston Firefighter Mike Meteria, who rode in the back of the police wagon-turned-ambulance with Sdoia and held her hand on the way to the hospital.
Meteria was back by Sdoia’s side on Tuesday, ready to give her a Fire Department escort to her home in the North End.
“Mike said they brought me in, they’re taking me home,” Sdoia said, smiling.
A recovery fund has been set up to help Roseann Sdoia at GoFundMe.com. As of Tuesday, the page had collected $ 362,000 toward a goal of $ 750,000.