Christians Under Attack

Eight days after the terror attack that claimed the life of Martin Richard, 8, his family still has an anxious wait for news on his little sister, Jane, who has lost a leg and remains in a critical condition, it has emerged today.

Jane Richard, 7, is believed to have been standing on the marathon fence next to the big brother she idolized when Monday's blast took place.

Father Bill and mother Denise - who also suffered head injuries - are having to remain strong for their youngest child, who is fighting 'multiple injuries' from the terror attack after losing a leg.

The couple buried their second oldest son in a private funeral today while their youngest remains hospitalised. 

'The outpouring of love and support over the last week has been tremendous. This has been the most difficult week of our lives and we appreciate that our friends and family have given us space to grieve and heal,' they said in a statement. 

'A private Funeral Mass was celebrated this morning with immediate family. We laid our son Martin to rest, and he is now at peace.  We plan to have a public memorial service in the coming weeks to allow friends and loved ones from our community to join us for a celebration of Martin’s life.'

Jane is an enthusiastic Irish dancer having attended classes at the Clifden Academy of Irish Dance in Milton since the age of three.

Several Irish dance groups are now raising money to support her. 

'She is just a beautiful little girl. We taught her since she was a baby, pointing her little toe,' Eileen Dillon Dinn, owner of the Clifton Academy, told the Irish Voice.

'We are just in a state of shock and disbelief. The Richard family is lovely. They went to the marathon as a happy family, and then this happened. We don’t know what to say.'

Jane loved to learn all the new moves at the academy, according to her teacher, and was on the sidelines at the recent Irish World Dance Championships in Boston dreaming that someday she would get the chance to compete.

'She’s a beauty, always smiling,' said Dillon Dinn. 'Jane really lives to dance.'

Her eldest brother Henry, 12, and father Bill managed to escape from the bomb attack uninjured. 

Images from the scene appear to show Bill, 42, a community organizer, holding his youngest children up on the railings as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev plants his backpack bomb just behind them. 

It isn't clear whether any of the women in the photograph is the children's mother, school librarian Denise, 43, who sustained head injuries and had to undergo brain surgery following the attack.

A spokesman for the family said he was unable to confirm the identities of those in the marathon image or provide an update for Jane's condition given she is under a privacy order. 

The Children's Hospital of Boston did not identify the seven-year-old girl they said was still in a critical condition.

 

However, previous reports of the injured suggest that Jane Richard is the only one of 11 or so youngsters injured in the terror attacks that fits the sparse description.

The family were watching elated runners cross the finish line on Monday. 

Bill is a former marathon runner himself so the young family liked to support other participants in the event, according to friends of the family.

Victims: From left, Martin Richards, eight, Krystal Campbell, 29, and Lu Lingxi, 23, were the three people killed in the explosions which tore through spectators at the Boston Marathon last Monday

Neighbors said Jane looked up to her older brother and they both attended the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, where their mother served as the school librarian. 

Tracey Monroe, a bystander who came to Jane's aid in the moments after the blast, told WCVB.com: 'I saw her laying in the street. I held her head in my hands and I tried to rub her and comfort her. I asked what her name was and she said Jane. 

'She was just a baby and so badly injured and scared. But she was so incredibly brave. I saw him [Martin] and at that point I knew he was gone. I'll never forget them - that little girl, she was so brave.'

The bombs, described by experts as makeshift anti-personnel devices, were made from pressure cookers packed with shrapnel and ball bearings to cause the maximum injuries to those caught in the blast.

 

 

Tsarnaev, whose older brother and suspected accomplice Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in the manhunt to track the bombers down, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction against persons or property.

The bombing killed three and injured more than 200, 48 of whom were still in hospital today, three in a critical condition, according to Reuters. 

At least 14 people lost all or part of a limb and three of them lost more than one.

But doctors say every one of the people injured in the Boston Marathon blasts who made it to a hospital alive now seem likely to survive.

On Saturday estimates of the injured jumped from 180 to 264 as people with delayed health issues arrived at hospital.

Nick Martin, a spokesman for the health commission, explained the sudden jump across 26 hospitals. 

'One of the best examples is hearing issues,” Martin said. 'People might have first thought their hearing problems would be temporary.' 

Others sought delayed care for minor shrapnel wounds.

The injured include several people who arrived with legs attached by just a little skin, a 3-year-old boy with a head wound and bleeding on the brain, and a little girl riddled with nails.

Even a transit system police officer whose heart had stopped and was close to bleeding to death after a shoot-out with the suspects now appears headed for recovery.

News of the injured came as mourners attended a private funeral yesterday for Krystle Campbell, 29, at St Joseph's Church in Medford, Massachusetts.

Miss Campbell, a steakhouse manager who attended the marathon every year, was caught in the first blast as she cheered on runners with a friend.

Around a thousand members of the local chapter of the Teamsters Union took part in a vigil outside the church to head off threatened protests by the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, ABC News reported.

And last night the family of Chinese graduate student Lu Lingzi, 23, attended a memorial service at Boston University for their daughter.

 

Services have not been announced for Martin Richard, of Boston. 

Gov Patrick has visited the family 

The suspected bombers are also believed to have fatally shot a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday night, before a gun battle with police and day-long manhunt that left most of the Boston area locked down.

The city's residents and many of their well-wishers - including President Barack Obama at the White House - observed a moment of silence at 2:49 pm yesterday, a week to the minute that the bombs exploded

'I think they know that there’s a lot of love and concern for them out in the community,' Patrick said. 

'I hope they do and I hope they find some strength in that.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313360/Boston-bo... 
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