Marine Comforts Bombing Survivors

From Battlefield To Boston: Marine Comforts Bombing Survivors
NPR
by TOM BOWMAN
May 03, 2013

Editor's note: In a story earlier this week, we met Celeste Corcoran, one of nearly two dozen people who lost limbs in the April 15 Boston bombing. Corcoran told NPR's Richard Knox that a hospital visit from two Marines who lost legs in Afghanistan had given her hope. "After I met them, it was like this little spark, this little light," she told Knox, "[that] it's really going to be OK."

One of those Marines was Cam West, a young captain whom NPR listeners first met in 2011 in a profile by Tom Bowman. This week Bowman checked in with West again for NPR's All Things Considered; he shares this update with Shots.

In a video taken just days after the Boston Marathon bombing, Cam West breezes into the hospital room like a coach, trying to inspire the team at halftime. Celeste Corcoran sits in a chair, the stubs of her legs wrapped in gauze. She's holding hands with her daughter, Sydney, who was also injured.

West leans over Celeste and grips the arms of her chair. She dabs away tears. She can barely speak.

He moves in close, and waves a hand above her stubs. "This doesn't matter," he tells Corcoran.

"It's just a change of scenery. It really is."
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Combat veterans visit double amputee in Boston