down onto the blocked-off street and shuttered storefronts, snapping
pictures with their smartphones of the chilling and undisturbed crime
scene below.
"Looking out those windows down onto the street put me under," says Ms. Clark. "There was so much that fed into the emotional overload."
ASCA's had some pretty big names collect pretty big checks to speak at its recent meetings: Reba McEntire (country music artist and
actress), Magic Johnson (former NBA great), Ben Stein (political and economic commentator) and John Stossel (consumer reporter who repeatedly referred to ASCs as ACSs during his talk), to name a few. None could hold a candle to the Boston bombing.
"Every free minute I had, I was glued to the TV," says Ms. Clark, who had planned to spend a couple extra days sightseeing in Boston,
but cut her trip short and flew home early. "At one point, I walked past an unattended backpack. That's what pushed me over the edge."
In some small way, the 2,000 or so surgical facility leaders who attended the ASCA conference helped return Boston to some sense of
normalcy. For that alone, they should feel proud and privileged that they dropped in on the Boston bombing. OSM
