Why bomb victim Adrianne Haslet-Davis is US talisman

A DANCER who lost part of her left leg in the Boston marathon bombing has become a talisman and symbol of American resilience in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.

Adrianne Haslet-Davis has vowed to dance again and wants to run in the next Boston marathon despite losing her left foot and part of her leg. The 32-year-old was watching the race with her husband, US Air Force Captain Adam Davis, when the second bomb exploded. The couple were both knocked to the ground by the blast.

"For a little while, it could have been two minutes or 20, I guess, everything seemed to go quiet," Haslet-Davis told the Boston Herald from her hospital bed. "I thought we were fine until I looked down and realised that my left foot was practically detached. That's when I started screaming my head off."

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Capt. Davis, who had just returned from Afghanistan, was "riddled with shrapnel", but took off his belt and applied a tourniquet to his wife's leg. Doctors were unable to save the lower part of her limb, but her stoicism and frankness about the incident have captivated Americans traumatised by the attack.

"I can't let some (expletive) come along and steal my whole life," Haslet-Davis said. "So, I'll dance again. And next year, though I've never been a runner, yes, I plan to run the marathon."

Haslet-Davis was visited by several members of the Boston Red Sox baseball team yesterday and the producers of Dancing with the Stars want her to appear on the show as soon as possible, says The Times. An online fundraising page set up to pay for her medical treatment has raised more than $140,000.

Meanwhile, the medical state of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspected of the Boston bombings, is improving, the FBI said. The student is now in a "fair condition".

It has also been revealed that Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan learned to make pressure cooker bombs by reading Inspire, an "online English-language terror propaganda publication", reports the Daily Mail.

The paper says the magazine is "dedicated to spreading al Qaeda's message, and even includes instructions on how to construct explosive devices". In the summer of 2010, an infamous article entitled Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom listed a pressure cooker bomb as the "most effective weapon".