Survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings have offered their support to the Orlando shooting victims.
A group of survivors of the 2013 Boston bombings recently took a trip to the Orlando Regional Medical Center to meet and share words of compassion with six victims of the Orlando shooting, who are being treated at the facility.
"You are Orlando Strong, we are Boston Strong, we are family now," Sydney Corcoran, who was injured in the Boston bombing, told Orlando shooting survivor Angel Colon.
During the meeting, which was organized with the help of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's office, the 10 Boston bombing survivors, accompanied by their service dogs, had the chance to offer advice and support to the Orlando survivors.
"It's a lot of talking, learning about their families and where they are all from. We are able to relate on a scale some folks may not be able to do," Dave Fortier, a Boston bombing survivor, told NBC News of the event. "We are showing them some of the things we learned."
Speaking from their own experiences, those at the Boston bombings offered advice on how to cope during this difficult time.
"There's post-traumatic stress and it helps to talk with someone who has been through similar situations," Celeste Corcoran, Sydney's mother who lost both her legs in the bombing, said according to a press release.
Many of the bonds made at the interaction have to potential to go far beyond the hospital doors as the groups exchanged contact information so they could communicate in the future. In fact, NBC reported that Boston survivors Eliza Gedney and Michelle L'Heureux invited Orlando survivor Rodney Sumter to attend the Boston Marathon with them next year -- an offer Sumter says he wants to take up.
Celeste Corcoran said it's important to note that despite the tragedies that have occurred, hate will never prevail.
"People who try and spread hate, it does the exact opposite, it brings together strangers and we are more tolerant of people," she said, according to a press release. "What happened was horrific and should never have happened but in their memory we choose to be nice to someone else, to pay it forward."
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