Steve Byrnes was cut badly on his face but says a mailbox absorbed most of the shrapnel that would have hit his lower body when the second bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon. He tells Anderson Cooper that he remembers everything about the blast.

His clothes were burned off his body and he believes he was inches away from losing his legs the way his friends did – four out of five lost limbs. "It was just absolute chaos. I saw things that, you know, I wish I didn't see," he says.

Read more at CNN

To help Byrnes with his medical costs, visit this fundraising site: Www.fundly.com/benefitforbizz

A pressure cooker stuffed with gunpowder and shrapnel caused at least one of the blasts at the BostonMarathon that killed three people and injured 176 others in the worst attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement sources said on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama called the two bombings on the marathon finish line an "act of terror" and police said parts of the center of Boston could be closed for days as they investigated the blasts that caused several people to lose limbs.

"When these kids came in ... they were just so badly hurt, just covered with singed hair and in so much pain, it was just gut-wrenching," said David Mooney, the director of the trauma program at Boston Children's Hospital. "Pulling nails out of a little girl's flesh is just awful." At least 10 people had limbs amputated as a result of their injuries, officials at hospitals said.

Read more at the Hartford Courant

A heartbroken dad whose daughter was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings had to endure a second shockwave of terror: doctors initially confused his daughter’s identity with a friend who survived.

“We had the doctors come out and tell us everything they did (on the survivor) — and it wasn’t our daughter,” said William Campbell Jr. 56.

The tragic turn of events began Monday when Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford, Mass. was watching the marathon with the friend, Karen Rand, to cheer on Rand’s boyfriend.  The pair were caught in the first blast at 2:20 p.m., and for hours, William Campbell and his wife believed doctors were operating on their daughter’s leg at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Read more at the NY Daily News

There’s now a face on Monday’s terror attack at the Boston Marathon: a devastating photo of a now-dead 8-year-old boy holding a poster calling for an end to violence.

“No more hurting people. Peace,” is the message held by Martin Richard in his classroom last April — part of a lesson on the shooting of Trayvon Martin, according to a Facebook post by Richard’s teacher Rachel Moo.

“My prayer is that we all live by Martin's words ... by following his example,” Lucia Brawley, a friend of Moo, posted under Martin’s picture.  Two members of the Richard family were also seriously injured in the second deadly blast near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race.

Read more at the NY Daily News