“At departure, one of the bombs went off. That’s where Mason was injured”, Chad Wells said.
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He has been treated for second degree burns to his hands, face, and head, and surgery was just completed for shrapnel injuries to his legs.
“This is the third time that sadly in our society that we have a connection to a bomb blast”, Wells told ABC News.
They were near the explosion when it occurred and have been hospitalized.
NBC News, quoting Wells’s family, said he was also in Paris, although in a different part of the city, in November when the French capital was rocked by a series of attacks.
Scott Bond, the LDS Bishop from Elder Wells’ home ward in Sandy said Wells had been a block away from the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
“Mason was very calm and composed”, she said.
Explosions at the airport and a city subway station killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens.
“The way we get back on our feet after something like this happens is a true test of character”, Chad Wells said. “I think it will make him a stronger person…Maybe the Boston experience was there to help him get through this experience”. He also wanted to reapply to the Naval Academy after barely missing the cut after high school, his father said. “It’s the kind of thing as a parent you never, ever want to wake up to”, Chad Wells said.
Utah’s Deseret News daily quoted a friend of the Wells family as saying the teenager and Empey had both suffered burns and other injuries. Our prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured, including three of our missionaries who were injured and hospitalized.
The three were accompanying a fourth missionary who was on her way to OH to serve her mission and who had already passed through security, according to the release. The sister missionary had been serving her mission in France while waiting for her visa to travel to the United States.
Mason was due to return from his mission in spring to start at the University of Utah, where he plans to major in engineering.
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“If there is a situation like that where they feel like missionaries could be injured somewhere or if the governments do not have friendly relations, missionaries don’t go to those countries”, said Annie Payne, who follows the Mormon faith. “His biggest concern right now is about housing at U of U”.
