“He’s dead, and I’m still here.”
A Boston Marathon victim whose legs were blown off in the attack spoke yesterday for the first time about his horrific injuries — and is more focused on his own recovery than the fate of the bombers.
“I’m pissed, obviously,” Jeff Bauman, 27, told the Boston radio show “Dennis & Callahan” on WEEI.
“But . . . it’s in the past, you know. You only look forward,” Bauman said from a rehab center.
“I had a lot to live for before, and I’ve got a lot to live for now.”
The Costco worker was at the marathon finish line on April 15 waiting for runner girlfriend Erin Hurley when he first spotted Tamerlan Tsarnaev skulking around the viewing area.
“I was with my girlfriend’s roommates, and we were having a great time,” Bauman said.
“And just that one guy, he didn’t look like he was having a good time. He was right next to me at that point, and he had a bag, and he had his [sun]glasses. He had kind of like a leather-like sweat-shirt deal, and it was warm out. He was just an odd guy.”
Tsarnaev — who quietly left behind the homemade pressure-cooker bomb filled with metal projectiles — “just didn’t seem right,” Bauman said.
“You know how you size somebody up? I just looked at him. I was, like, ‘What’s this guy’s problem?’ ” he told WEEI.
“Next thing you know, I hear fireworks, and I’m on the ground,” Bauman said. “It was quick — he was there, and then he was gone, and then, ‘Boom!’ ”
Bauman thought he was going to die as he bled profusely on Boylston Street — until cowboy-hat-wearing peace activist Carlos Arredondo came to his rescue.
“I saw him. He was running around helping everybody” injured in the blast.
“And then . . . he helped me,” Bauman said of Arredondo, who was photographed pushing him to safety in a wheelchair. “He was going nuts helping everybody. His adrenaline was definitely, definitely kicking.
“When Carlos picked me up and threw me into the wheelchair, then I was like, ‘All right, maybe I am going to make it.’ But before that, no way — I thought I was done.”
The radio hosts said Arredondo reported that Bauman was “unbelievably composed” despite his wounds.
“I don’t know,” Bauman said. “I just toughed it up at that point . . . I was definitely hurting.”
“But I was [also] sad that someone would actually do that,” Bauman said of the bombers.
He said he was conscious all the way to the hospital and “was giving descriptions” of Tamerlan to emergency workers.
“When I did come out of the first operation,” Bauman said, “the FBI was all around my room.”
Bauman’s description of Tamerlan in his baseball cap and aviator glasses helped authorities spot Tamerlan — and then his brother, Dzhokhar — on surveillance video.
The FBI released their photos on April 18, and Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout. Dzhokhar was arrested the following night.
“What I thought was, ‘He’s dead, and I’m still here,’ ” Bauman said of Tamerlan.
Bauman has received support from around the world, including hospital visits from actor Bradley Cooper and members of the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox.
On Tuesday, Bauman dropped in on fellow victim Sydney Corcoran at Boston Medical Center and gave her electronics from Costco for her 18th birthday.
He’s gotten some gifts himself — including a fedora from Arredondo during an emotional reunion, Bauman said, adding that the two talk every day.
The Red Sox have asked Bauman to throw out the first ball at a Fenway Park game — and Bauman said, “I’ll do it if Carlos does it.”
Bauman said his girlfriend plans to run the marathon again next year and he’ll “definitely” be there to cheer her on.
When asked if he’ll return to the finish line, Bauman said, “I don’t know yet.”