Two survivors of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing relived the event before an audience of advisors at LPL Financial's Focus conference last week.

“I remember the day like it was yesterday," Jeff Bauman told the audience. " I try to forget it, but it will always be with me. The kid bumped into me. He had a backpack. He was alone. I stared at him. He had glasses on. I was thinking, ‘Where is he going?’ I then saw a bag two or three feet away. I was thinking any unattended bags should be reported. I was thinking about that and two seconds later I was thinking, ‘Why are they shooting fireworks off into the crowd?’  I lifted my head and saw chaos. I felt like I was in a war movie. Then I saw my legs. Bones were split open. I didn’t think I was going to make it."

Then, in a description of what was going through his mind that drew some laughter from the crowd, he continued, "I was thinking about my mom. I was thinking, ‘She is going to kill me.’”

Bauman and Heather Abbott  answered questions from Lisa Hughes, a co-anchor for WBZ-TV news in Boston. Abbott and Bauman survived the Boston Marathon explosions that took place on April 15, 2013. Abbott lost part of one leg and Bauman lost parts of both legs, yet both walked into the conference hall on their own.

Abbott recalled hearing the first explosion and, 12 seconds later, the second explosion went off.  “I felt like my foot was on fire," she said. " I was calling out for help, but I didn’t know what was next.”

Multiple doctors told Abbott that her best chance for an active life was to have her leg amputated. “My first reaction was, ‘How am I going to tell my dad?’” she said.

She also replayed the ordeal in her mind, going through all the "What ifs."

"What if I was later? Why me?" she recalls asking herself. 

Bauman said he had to deal with similar thoughts.

“I accepted it and decided I was going to be strong for the people around me,” Bauman said.

“My best friend Sully was there,” he said, later joking that seeing him was the reason he knew he hadn't died and gone to heaven.

Later, while feeling the worst pain he had ever felt, Bauman started to focus on the outside world.  “I realized how much support was out there,” he said, noting that he received boxes of letters while in the hospital.

“It affected a lot of people. They wanted to see us do well and that is what drives us,” Bauman said.

Abbott said veterans, some of whom who lost limbs themselves, came to visit her and other victims in the hospital and offered hope and encouragement.

Bauman said he knew his life had changed forever once he stepped out of the hospital.  "This is a whole new ball game. A step toward my own independence," he recalled thinking.

“You can sink, swim or tread water. You have to keep moving forward a little bit,” said Bauman, who was also one of the witnesses who was able to help the FBI identify the suspicious man he saw on the street that day.

Abbott said she has been uplifted through her foundation, which helps other amputees get legs. “I hadn’t known how expensive they are. For me, it has been important to give back and try to help,” she said. She later told the crowd the cost of her prosthetic high-heel leg was $70,000.

“People say, ‘You are so inspirational and strong.’ I think there are many others that didn’t have as much help as we did," she said.

Bauman agreed, saying, “There are people out there that have nothing.  It fuels me.”

Abbott and Bauman said drew strength from the local and national community, whether through being asked to throw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game, being visited by celebrities or random strangers sending letters and buying dinners.

 “It was absolutely what got me through.  It is what drove us,” Abbot said.