Marc Fucarile does not need you to feel sorry for him. He needs you to download an app.
Thirteen years after a pressure-cooker bomb went off a few feet from him on Boylston Street, the Stoneham, Massachusetts, man is running two organizations built on one idea he learned the hard way: the most useful thing a person can get after losing their mobility is a straight answer from somebody who already made it through.
One organization is a social network. The other is a foundation. Both carry his name, and both exist because a lot of strangers showed up for Marc Fucarile when he could not stand up on his own. This is the story of what happened to him, what he built, and why it matters to anyone who has ever watched someone they love wake up in a body that no longer works the way it did.
Twelve Seconds on Boylston Street
On April 15, 2013, Fucarile went into Boston to cheer on a friend running the marathon. He went with friends that included J.P. and Paul Norden, brothers who would each lose a leg that afternoon.
“The first bomb went off. And then the second bomb went off 12-13 seconds later right next to us,” he told NewsNation in 2024.
The second blast amputated his right leg above the knee on the spot. His left leg was shattered. He was burned across his legs, trunk, back and pelvis. His spine was fractured, both eardrums ruptured, and shrapnel tore into his body. One piece lodged in his heart.
When he testified at the federal death-penalty trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev two years later, Fucarile told jurors that one of the first things he remembers is lying on his back, looking at the sky, and hearing a nurse say, “He’s still on fire.” CBS News reported that he glared at the bomber from his wheelchair, about 10 feet away. Tsarnaev never looked back.
Lying on Boylston Street, Fucarile had one thought. “I just kept saying I wanted to see my boy,” he said.
The attack killed three people: 8-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell and 23-year-old Lu Lingzi. MIT Police Officer Sean Collier was murdered by the bombers days later. More than 260 people were wounded, and 17 of them lost limbs.
100 Days, 60 Surgeries and a Year at Walter Reed
Police rushed Fucarile to Massachusetts General Hospital. When he finally left Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on July 24, 2013, he had been through 16 surgeries that included 49 separate procedures, according to WBUR. He was one of the last bombing survivors to go home.
He hobbled into the lobby on crutches. His 5-year-old son Gavin giggled through the press conference. Fucarile admitted there were nights he wanted to quit, and then said the line that sums him up better than anything written about him since.
“I’d go through 100 more procedures as long as I can be there to go home with him.”
Marc Fucarile, July 2013, on his son Gavin
He did go through more. By the trial in April 2015 he had undergone more than 60 surgeries, and doctors still could not promise he would keep his left leg. Biography.com later reported that he required the most surgeries of any victim of the attack.
The fight for that left leg lasted three years. One of those years he lived in Bethesda, Maryland, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the same hospital that rebuilds America’s wounded warriors. He has called the doctors there miracle workers. A family friend named David McNeil put his own landscaping and excavation business on hold and moved in to help Marc through that year, day after day.
- April 15, 2013The second bomb takes Fucarile’s right leg above the knee on Boylston Street.
- July 24, 2013He leaves Spaulding Rehab after 100 days, 16 surgeries and 49 procedures.
- April 23, 2015He testifies at the bomber’s trial with more than 60 surgeries behind him.
- 2013 to 2016A three-year fight to save his left leg, including a year at Walter Reed.
- April 17, 2017He crosses the Boston Marathon finish line on a handcycle.
- 2023He launches the M.A.R.C. Network and the ReMARCable Foundation.
Then he started moving again. He crossed the Boston finish line on a handcycle in 2017 and raced it again on the 10th anniversary in 2023. He has completed eight full marathons on a handcycle. He skis. He has jumped out of an airplane. “The only ones that don’t complete the race are the ones that stop,” he says. “And that’s the same with life.”
What Recovery Taught Him
Here is the part most survivor stories skip. Fucarile had some of the best trauma doctors on the planet. What they could not give him was the practical, everyday knowledge of how to live in a new body. Which prosthetist is worth the drive. How to get a wheelchair into a car. What to say to your kid. How to fight an insurance denial. Who to call when you are ready to try skiing.
He got those answers from other people living with limb loss and mobility challenges. Veterans and other trauma survivors came to see him in the hospital. “People have lost limbs and it’s those people who get you through the tough times because you know you’re not the only one,” his fiancée at the time told WBUR in 2013.
That lesson stuck. He started mentoring kids with limb differences at Camp No Limits, a camp for young amputees. He volunteered for other nonprofits. And he kept asking himself a question: why should the next person have to find all of this by luck?
The M.A.R.C. Network: A Community App for People Who Lost Their Mobility
The M.A.R.C. Network is his answer. The letters stand for Mobility Awareness Resource Community, and yes, the name is his too.
“It’s a social media platform for people with mobility challenges, anybody from MS, ALS, amputation, spinal cord injuries to stroke survivors,” Fucarile told WCVB when he announced it in November 2023. “It’s a safe, positive and supportive community, and that’s where you can get resources as a person who’s facing these new challenges, and you can reach out and ask people that have already experienced it.”
What’s inside the M.A.R.C. Network app
- Community Wall: a social feed where members post questions, setbacks and wins, with photos and video.
- Public and private groups: built around a shared condition, a hometown, a sport or a hobby.
- Events: in-person and virtual events that members can find, share and attend together.
- Media and resources: articles, videos and podcasts searchable by topic, including network shows such as Sports Talk with Doc, the 9th Hole Podcast and Stronger Together, which Marc co-hosts with Matt Castelluccio.
- Price: free on the App Store and Google Play.
Asked why he would take this on after everything, Fucarile did not dress it up. “I have a platform and I can do it. And I’m strong and I can bear that weight. So, why not?”
He did not build it alone. His co-founder, Kirk Hanson, has been a family friend for more than 30 years and has already taken multiple marketing technology companies from startup to sale. Boston consulting group Marlborough Street Partners is advising the network for free as it forms a public benefit corporation. Boston law firm Rich May, P.C. handles its legal work, also for free. The firm’s managing director, Robert Tedesco, has a personal reason: his father lost a foot serving in World War II.
The advisory board includes John Stoner, former chief financial officer of Akron Children’s Hospital, and Jennifer Fraser, founder of New Hampshire’s Granite State Adaptive, a year-round adaptive sports program that raised $3.5 million to build an accessible equestrian center. The network even got a national shout-out on The Pat McAfee Show from Super Bowl radio row in Las Vegas in February 2024.
Stucci Media has followed the network from early on. Read our look inside the Mobility Awareness Resource Community, watch Marc and Matt Castelluccio talk with comedian and filmmaker Zach Anner on Stronger Together, and hear writer Scotty Roberts describe navigating life after amputation on a MARC Network episode.
The ReMARCable Foundation: Paying Back Every Stranger Who Showed Up
When Fucarile was at his lowest, the country showed up. Cards covered his hospital walls. Strangers sent donations and hand-knit blankets. “Let’s stay Boston strong forever, because we need everybody to remember,” he said the day he went home.
He remembered. In 2023 he turned that debt into the ReMARCable Foundation. Its mission, in the foundation’s own words, is “to support organizations that service those with mobility challenges as well as individuals with disabilities and the caregivers who stand by them.” In practice that means four things: financial assistance, adaptive equipment, community programs, and access to essential resources.
The caregivers part is not an afterthought. Anyone who has lived through a catastrophic injury knows the person pushing the wheelchair is carrying weight too, and most support systems forget them entirely.
The foundation’s work shows up in the places where people get their lives back. Photos on its site document donations involving adaptive gear maker EnableGear and Granite State Adaptive Sports, along with adaptive racing and community groups such as Onward Motion. It fielded a charity team at the 2024 Boston Marathon, the same race that nearly killed its founder. This fall the foundation is on the road at Abilities Expo, the free national showcase for the disability community. It was in Phoenix September 11 to 13 and heads to Orlando October 9 to 11. Marc also raised money for the September 12 Verve Celebrity Softball Classic in Frisco, Texas, where veterans and celebrities squared off to benefit veterans and other charities.
The team is small and personal. Marketing and outreach coordinator Abbi Parker grew up in a family that has been close with the Fucariles for decades. The board includes David McNeil, the same friend who moved into Walter Reed with him, and John Stoner. Nobody here is running a charity from a distance.
“A community was built out of such a tragic event. All this as the need for help grows.”
Marc Fucarile, to the Boston Herald, August 2026
Father, Husband, Mentor
Strip away the headlines and Fucarile’s life is built around family. His son Gavin, the little boy giggling at that 2013 press conference, was born on Marc’s 29th birthday. He calls Gavin his most precious gift.
He is married to Niki, who was born without arms and legs. If anyone understands what it takes to build a full life in a world that was not designed for your body, it is the two of them.
Today he also works as a motivational speaker and life coach. His philosophy fits in one sentence from his own website: “We are only limited by the things that we allow to limit us.” His advice to anyone facing their own version of Boylston Street is just as direct: “You’re facing challenges, focus on what you can control, not what you can’t control.”
Why This Matters Beyond Boston
The Boston Marathon bombing created 17 amputees in one afternoon. The rest of the country creates far more every day through diabetes, vascular disease, car wrecks, workplace accidents and combat. Fucarile puts the number of amputations in the United States at 300 to 500 a day. Add spinal cord injuries, strokes, MS and ALS, and the number of families suddenly learning a new way to live is enormous.
Most of them will never be on the evening news. They will not get cards from strangers across the country. What the M.A.R.C. Network and the ReMARCable Foundation try to give them is the thing Fucarile got by accident of fame: a community that shows up, and people who have already walked (or rolled) the road ahead.
If this story sounds familiar, it should. Veterans have been building exactly this kind of peer support for generations, and it is the same spirit behind efforts like Glenn Baker’s Walk For A Hero, which is working to put paralyzed veterans back on their feet with exoskeletons.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Marc Fucarile?
Marc Fucarile is a survivor of the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing from Stoneham, Massachusetts. The second bomb amputated his right leg above the knee and severely injured his left leg. He is the founder of the M.A.R.C. Network and the ReMARCable Foundation, and he works as a motivational speaker and mentor.
What is the M.A.R.C. Network?
The M.A.R.C. (Mobility Awareness Resource Community) Network is a free social app for people with mobility challenges, including amputees, spinal cord injury survivors, stroke survivors and people living with MS or ALS, plus their families. It offers a community feed, groups, events and a searchable library of resources. It is available on the App Store and Google Play.
What does the ReMARCable Foundation do?
The ReMARCable Foundation is a nonprofit Fucarile founded in 2023. It supports people with disabilities, their caregivers and the organizations that serve them through financial assistance, adaptive equipment, community programs and access to resources.
How badly was Marc Fucarile hurt in the Boston Marathon bombing?
He lost his right leg above the knee at the scene and suffered a shattered left leg, burns, a fractured spine, ruptured eardrums and shrapnel wounds, including a piece lodged in his heart. He spent 100 days in the hospital, underwent more than 60 surgeries by 2015 and spent a year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center fighting to save his left leg.
How can I support Marc Fucarile’s work?
Download the M.A.R.C. Network app and share it with anyone facing mobility loss, donate to or volunteer with the ReMARCable Foundation, sponsor either organization, or book Fucarile as a speaker through the foundation’s website.
Take Action
If someone in your life just lost their mobility, send them the M.A.R.C. Network today. It is free, and it may connect them with the one person who already solved the problem they are staring at.
If you want to put money or muscle behind the mission, get involved with the ReMARCable Foundation. You can volunteer, run for the team, become a sponsor, or book Marc to speak to your company, school or veterans group. Businesses interested in backing the app can start at the network’s sponsorship page.
And share this story. The whole point of both organizations is that nobody facing this should have to find help by accident.
The Bottom Line
Two terrorists tried to destroy people on Boylston Street in 2013. They took Marc Fucarile’s leg, years of his life and more surgeries than anyone should survive. What they did not take was the part of him that keeps showing up for the next person.
He could have spent the rest of his life telling the story. Instead he built two things that outlast it: a network so no one faces mobility loss alone, and a foundation that pays forward every kindness a stranger ever showed him. That is not a survivor story. That is a legacy.
