Preview: Adrianne Haslet on Before & After with Lester Holt

On April 15, 2013, Adrianne Haslet was standing two feet from the second bomb at the Boston Marathon finish line. She lost half her leg. But in a preview of the new podcast Before and After with Lester Holt, she reveals something she has never shared publicly before: the secret that she believes helped her survive that day—and the story she has been waiting to tell.

Haslet, a professional ballroom dancer, describes the moment she decided to walk away from the finish line and move a few blocks down the street, turning her back to the race. She heard a "giant enormous boom" and saw black smoke. Police drew their guns, runners fell, and she remembers yelling, "The next one's gonna hit"—a wild guess she did not understand at the time. She put her fingers in her ears. The second blast went off almost immediately after. Then she was on the ground, surrounded by gray smoke. "I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't hear anything. It was like my senses were all gone. I didn't know if I was alive or dead."