The Gauntlet asked Noah Varney, a freshman here at Saint Stephen’s, what the one thing that impacted his life the most was. He knew his answer immediately.

 “The thing that impacted me most in my life was the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. On that fateful day, Monday, April 15th, My mom and I went there to see people run, but we did not know it was going to be the most impactful day of our lives.

“When we got there it started out as a normal day, pretty average. We went to watch the runners and later towards the end of the race we were at the finish line and we did not know there was a backpack with a pressure cooker bomb three feet behind us. After that bomb went off there were two more. Then we were immediately rushed to the hospital.” 

Noah and his mom were severely injured, but later recovered. 

“This day impacted me because I was scared to leave the house afterwards and I suffered from severe PTSD. Later my mom founded a non profit organization called Rebecca’s Angels which provides therapy for kids and families that experience PTSD.” 

When asked how the trauma had affected his day to day life, Varney said: “It mainly made me not want to leave the house because I didn’t want to get hurt or my mom to get hurt again. I was afraid to ride a bike. Anything that could hurt me I was afraid of. I later got over that, and it is pretty normal now.”