In letter, injured MBTA officer Richard Donohue thanks community for support

By Martine Powers, Globe Staff

Almost two weeks after MBTA Transit Police Officer Richard Donohue was injured during a shootout with the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, the recovering officer released a statement Wednesday thanking the police and first responders who saved his life and community members who have supported his family.

“I am now awake, moving around, talking, and telling jokes,” Donohue wrote in the statement, “much to my Wife’s dismay.”

Donohue had been shot in the groin early in the morning of April 19, as he chased Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev through the streets of Watertown. When he arrived at Mount Auburn Hospital, he had lost a significant amount of blood and barely had a pulse.

Donohue wrote that doctors will leave the bullet in his leg because it is not obstructing anything or causing pain.

“My pain varies day to day and I still have a long road of rehab and recovery ahead,” Donohue wrote, “but I am optimistic I’ll recover back to 100%.”

Donohue thanked first responders, fire department staff, and other police officers who he said put their lives on the line to help him when he was shot. He expressed condolences to the family of Sean Collier, the MIT police officer believed to have been killed by the alleged bombers. Donohue and Collier graduated together from the police academy.

“We are certain Sean was watching over me and assisted in saving my life,” Donohue said in the statement. “He could not save himself that night, but Sean could save me.”

Donohue said he does not have much memory of the night in Watertown, and is still working to piece together his own timeline of the shootout.

“When the full story of that evening is accounted for, it will be wilder than any movie you have ever seen,” Donohue wrote. “And it will contain more heroes.”