SALT LAKE CITY // A US teenager injured in this week’s Brussels attacks also survived the Boston marathon bombings and was in Paris at the time of last November’s terrorist rampage.
Mason Wells, a 19-year-old from the state of Utah, is expected to make a full recovery from the bombings at the international airport in Brussels on Tuesday, which left him with a surgery scar, severed Achilles tendon, head gash, shrapnel injuries and severe burns.
Mr Wells had once again found himself at the centre of a major attack – standing within feet of a bomb that exploded at the Belgian airport. The blasts in the Belgian capital killed at least 34 people – including three attackers – and wounded dozens at the airport and on a metro train.
Three years ago in the United States, Mr Wells and his father felt the ground shake and narrowly escaped death when a pressure-cooker bomb exploded a block away from where they were watching his mother run the Boston Marathon.
NBC News, quoting Mr Wells’ family, said he was also in Paris in November when the French capital was rocked by a series of attacks.
“Hopefully he’s run his lifelong odds and we’re done,” said Mason’s father, Chad Wells, about the oldest of his five children. “I think it will make him a stronger person ... Maybe the Boston experience was there to help him get through this experience.”
The former high school football and lacrosse player had four months left on his two-year Mormon mission, and was planning to major in engineering at the University of Utah in the autumn. He also wanted to reapply to the Naval Academy after barely missing the cut after high school, his father said.
Chad Wells said he woke up to the latest news on the television before calling his son’s mission president in France and found out that his son was injured but alive. More than eight hours later, they finally spoke to their son, who was groggy and exhausted after surgery. The teenager is in good spirits but his family is still figuring out when they’ll get to see him, and if he’ll finish his mission.
“I’m completely shocked by the news. It’s the kind of thing as a parent you never, ever want to wake up to,” Chad Wells said. “We’re just grateful that’s he lived through this experience.”
Other Mormon missionaries at the Brussels airport were also hospitalised. Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20, were with Mason Wells and also hospitalised with serious injuries from the blast.
Mr Norby’s family said on Wednesday that shrapnel caused severe trauma to the man’s lower leg and that he had also suffered second-degree burns to his head and neck. Following a lengthy surgery, he is now expected to stay in a medically-induced coma for a few days.
His family said a lengthy recovery is expected.
“His wife, Pamela Norby, was not at the airport at the time of the attack and is supporting him during this challenging time,” the family said.
Mr Empey is doing well after being treated for second-degree burns to his hands, face and head, his parents, Court and Amber Empey said. He also had surgery for shrapnel injuries to his legs.
“We have been in touch with him and he is grateful and in good spirits,” the family said.
Utah governor Gary Herbert praised the three Utah natives as “people of faith who have forsaken everything – family, friends, school and careers – in order to share a message of hope and love with the world.” Thousands of Utah Mormons have served proselytising missions around the world. Church members account for as many as two-thirds of the state’s population.
* Associated Press, with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
