FALMOUTH – A Falmouth High School graduate who was injured by a bomb near the finish line of the Boston Marathon returned home to Maine on Wednesday.
Sarah Girouard, 20, who is a junior at Northeastern University in Boston, was released from Tufts Medical Center in Boston around noon.
Her parents, Christopher and Sue Girouard, drove her back to their home in Falmouth, where she is recovering from shrapnel injuries to her right shin bone and heel, and partially ruptured ear drums.
She is expected to recover from her injuries, but her mobility may be limited for the next month or so.
Girouard was exhausted Wednesday night. “She’s drained and she’s tired but she is doing OK,” her mother said.
Girouard graduated from Falmouth High in 2010. She is studying environmental science at Northeastern, where she is a member of the triathlon team.
Sue Girouard said her daughter has been overwhelmed by the media and public attention.
While she was a patient at the hospital, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick visited to check on her well-being.
She was invited by hospital officials to return to Boston Thursday to participate in a meeting — Sue Girouard wasn’t certain of the format — with President Obama, who is expected to visit the city.
“I think Sarah is going to have to pass on that,” her mother said.
Several reporters interviewed Girouard as she left Tufts Medical Center on Wednesday. She told them that she was standing near the marathon finish line with two friends Monday afternoon when the bomb exploded.
She said shrapnel fractured her shin bone and the bone in her heel. She sought help in a medical tent that had been set up for the runners.
Her mother was returning from the grocery store when a friend sent her a text message that said, “I hope your daughter is not at the marathon.”
“Your heart kind of stops because I knew she was (at the marathon),” Sue Girouard said in the interview, which was posted on WGME-TV’s website.
“We’re blessed,” she told reporters. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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