himself on fire and rescued. he recalled his wife s words of comfort as he calmed jeff ballmon jr. he lost his legs but he survived. what i experience myself and give something to comfort him and give him hope and get him out of there as soon as we could. reporter: you can call boston kind. peter dandrotti leaves two miles from where the race went off. we carried everything out on platters and just started feeding people and bringing out coffee and the little things that we could do, my friends and i, to help people out in this time of tragedy. reporter: nearly 6,000 people offered their home online to stranded runners. yes, you can call boston generous. margaret schmitt invited three runners and their friends into the home and fed the shivering group from kansas city. they were just sitting there not able to get into their hotel, not having eaten. and they weren t complaining.