Kaitlynn Cates said she had angels watching over her when her world came crashing down at the finish line of the Boston Marathon two weeks ago.

Cates, 25, of Everett, Mass., near Boston, was watching the marathon from the finish line April 15 when the two bombs went off. Her friend Leo Fonseca, 41, sprang to action and carried her to safety.

"When the first explosion went off, we went to the ground. And he jumped on top of me and told me to stay down in case there were anymore explosives," Cates told ABC News. "And then, he picked me up and carried me to where his car is, tied a blanket and his shirt around my leg to stop the bleeding."

Fonseca said his instinct was to pick her up and rush her to the hospital. Cates, who is now at home with a long road ahead of her, said his quick thinking saved her wounded leg, not to mention her life.

Cates, whom President Obama visited last week at Massachusetts General Hospital where she was recovering, was one of more than 170 people who were injured when a pair of bombs ripped through the race crowd. After investigators identified brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as suspects, based on surveillance footage from the event, Tamerlan died in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was injured and later captured.

Cates' friends organized a Giveforward.com page to help with the substantial medical and rehabilitation costs she will now face.

ABC News' Gio Benitez and Jennifer Abbey contributed to this report.

(ABC News)