Boston Marathon bombing victim Jane Richard has a spring in
her step again.
The 7-year-old Irish step dancer from Dorchester — whose
brother Martin was killed and their mother gravely injured by a terrorist’s
bomb on April 15 — is strutting and even dancing on the prosthetic leg that
replaced the one the little girl lost that day.
“She’s not back at dance class, but when she went to get the
leg, she asked for one that does Irish dancing,” said Eileen Dillon Dinn, owner
of Clifden Academy of Irish Dance in Milton, where the grade schooler was a
student before she lost her left leg in the bombing.
Jane was released from Spaulding Rehabilitation Center a few
weeks ago after completing “hundreds of hours of physical therapy,” the Richard
family said in a statement yesterday.
“Her strength, balance and comfort with the leg improve
every day. Watching her dance with her new leg, which has her weight primarily
on the other leg, is absolutely priceless,” the family said.
The whole family stayed together at the Spaulding
Rehabilitation Hospital as Jane and her mother were treated.
“That was the first time any of us slept at home in our own
beds since before the bombings,” the family wrote.
“We left home together on April 15th, and we were determined
that none of us would sleep at home until all of us could do so.”
The bombing blinded her mother Denise in one eye, and has
left her father Bill with burns and shrapnel wounds. Her older bother Henry,
11, was physically unharmed.
“Jane continues to be an incredible source of inspiration —
and exhaustion,” wrote the Richard family. “The loss of her leg has not slowed
her one bit or deterred her in any way.”
Both Henry and Jane will return to school in coming weeks.
Dillon Dinn expects nothing less of her determined dancer.
“She’s just one of those really happy kids. You’d know when
she came to class. She’d come bounding through the door, she’d go back and put
her shoes. She’s just a real vivacious, energetic kid,” Dillon Dinn said.
Classes at Clifden resume next month, and Dillon Dinn hopes
her bubbly student will be able to return in time.
“She’s still part of the dance school as far as I’m
concerned. I hope she’ll be able to get back up there again,” she said.
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