Mormon church officials say three missionaries from Utah and Clain, were seriously injured in the Brussels airport terrorist attack.
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Nineteen-year-old Mason Wells, from Utah, remains in intensive care in Brussels after suffering severe burns in one of the blasts on Tuesday. He was watching his mother run the race with his father and they both felt the ground shake when a pressure-cooker bomb exploded just a block away from them.
He was also in Paris during the attacks in November, but was in a different part of the city from where the attacks took place.
This undated photo provided by Chad Wells shows Mormon missionaries Mason Wells, 19, of Sandy, Utah, left, and Joseph Empey, 20, of Santa Clara, Utah.
Wells, a native of Utah, and two other American Mormon missionaries – Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20 – were at the airport escorting a fellow missionary, the Frenchwoman Fanny Clain, 20, as she prepared to depart for an assignment in Ohio.
Strangely enough, the family says it’s not the first time they’ve been in the center of a terror attack.
“So strong that the glass came over me and threw many people to the ground, and all I thought about was my family”, Chan said.
“I’m dumbfounded to be honest”, said Chad Wells.
Tuesday’s attack by the Islamic State group killed 31 people and wounded over 300 others inside a subway system and at Brussels’ worldwide airport.
“He shared with us that he was extremely close to the blast where he was burned by it”, Chad Wells, Mason’s father, told ABC News. In total, at least 32 people were killed in the blasts at the airport and a Brussels metro station.
“I think that there’s only one person that could have helped me stay as calm as I did and that would be God”, Wells said. “We wish to express our love to the Paris France Mission president, President Babin; his wife and the fine missionaries”. He also had surgery for shrapnel injuries to his legs. Thousands of Utah Mormons have served proselytizing missions around the world.
Empey’s parents said he was out of surgery and in good spirits Tuesday night.
“Mason has always assured us that he is safe and careful”, she said.
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Sally Ho reported from Las Vegas.
