Boston

5 Years After Bombings, Spaulding Rehab Team Runs Boston Marathon

NBC10 Boston's Eli Rosenberg and Caroline Connolly both said thinking about the Spaulding patients got them through the 26.2 miles Monday

Despite the wind and the rain, runners from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital laced up for a purpose that they said helped push them through the 26.2.

Seventy-seven runners helped raise more than $600,000 for the hospital that they have seen change the lives of patients.

The patients they are running for include Trevor Duquette, who spent time at Spaulding after being injured in a car accident. This year, his mother was running in his name.

"Spaulding has changed my life," Duquette said. "At the hospital, they told me I would never walk again, but after three or four days at Spaulding, I was back on my feet just going."

Also back on his feet is John Odom, a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombings, who stopped by the watch party at the Mandarin Hotel in Boston.

"You can't give enough to for what they do for everyone that's there," Odom said. "They give them their life back."

Spinal cord doctor Ryan Solinsky was the first to finish on the Spaulding team. He said seeing some of his former patients along the way helped him keep going.

"There were a couple patients that I had out there on the course so it was meaningful to have those points to check off in my mind," Solinsky said.

NBC10 Boston's own Eli Rosenberg and Caroline Connolly were also on the Spaulding team and finished their first marathons ever, despite less than ideal conditions. They said what helped them get to the finish was remembering exactly why they started.

"It really just fueled me all throughout," Rosenberg said. "I hit a wall a couple of times, but I knew what they had overcome and what they go through so I kept going."

"We know all these patients who came through here after the bombings," Connolly said. "I've gotten to know so many of them and to think about what they went through, their recovery, this is nothing."

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