Mother: Forgotten Phone Saved My Daughter From Walking into the Blast

A forgotten cell phone may have been all that stood between a Berklee student and the bombs that tore into Boston Monday afternoon.

Lizzie, a transfer student who had just moved to the Back Bay in January, decided to take a break from her studies around 2:30 p.m. and catch a bit of the race. She lived four blocks from the finish line.

"(Lizzie) and her roommate decided to see what the marathon was all about, and being so close to the finish line, it would be fun to watch the festivities from that vantage point, just a few minutes' walk from their apartment. It was such a beautiful day, they would walk along the east side of Boylston Street," her mother, Ryder Ziebarth, of Bedminster, N.J., said.

Lizzie and her roommate headed out shortly after, walking directly toward what would be the site of the first explosion minutes later. 

But before they got far, Lizzie realized she had forgotten her cell phone and turned back to get it. 

"That delay, plus a few more minutes at the apartment, saved her and her friend from walking directly into the bomb blast," Ziebarth said.

For Ziebarth, like many parents around the nation who have children in Boston colleges, the moment was terrifying. And it brought her back to the feeling she had on Sept. 11, 2001, when Lizzie was in a New Jersey elementary school. 

"I can tell you as a mother, getting a text on my cell in New Jersey at a bit past 3:35 saying, 'There is no cell service in Boston now, but I wanted to let you know I am fine, Mom. There was a bombing here,' took me directly back to the head-spinning moments after the Trade Center bombings in New York so many years ago," Ziebarth said.

"Then, my husband and I were able to rush to her Morristown, N.J., elementary school, just 20 minutes away, to be with her and other concerned parents. But now she lives five hours away, so I wrung my hands and paced my own kitchen trying her cell again and again, texting her to stay indoors, trying to process the information coming across the television and car radio. My only consoling thought was that because she was so close to the site,the Boston police force would be out in droves and maybe, just maybe, she'd be safer there, then further away."

Later in the evening, Ziebarth said, the impact of what "might have been" fully sunk in.  "I wept, and prayed, polled friends and family about whether I should go get her (her father was on his way home from an East Coast trip), whether I could get into Boston."

Ultimately, she said, Lizzie told her to stay in New Jersey. 

"I know (Lizzie) cried a lot, I know she was terrified, and I know she was a trouper, and if they need blood, or she can be of help, she will be. She is a terrific kid, and brave," Ziebarth said.