Brussels attacks: Injured teen also survived Boston bomb
Mason Wells, 19, from Sandy, Utah, is expected to make a full recovery after the attack at Brussels airport on Tuesday. He had been standing close to one of the bombs and suffered a severed Achilles tendon, gashed head, shrapnel injuries, and severe burns.
In April 2013, Mr Wells and his father felt the ground shake and narrowly escaped death in the US when a pressure-cooker bomb exploded a block away from where they were watching his mother run the Boston Marathon.
“Hopefully he’s run his lifelong odds and we’re done,” said Chad Wells about the eldest 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 study engineering at the University of Utah next autumn.
Mr Wells Sr said he woke up to the latest news on the TV before calling his son’s mission president in France and found out his son was injured but alive. More than eight hours later, he finally spoke to his son, who was groggy and exhausted after surgery.
Mason is in good spirit, his father said, but his family do not yet know when they will see him or if he will complete 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,” said Mr Wells. “We’re just grateful that’s he lived through this experience.”
Mormon missionaries Richard Norby, 66, of Lehi, and Joseph Empey, 20, of Santa Clara, were with Mason Wells at the airport and were also admitted to hospital after suffering serious injuries from the blast.
Mr Empey is doing well after being treated for second-degree burns to his hands, face and head, said his parents, Court and Amber Empey. 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 three men were at the airport with Fanny Rachel Clain, 20, of Montelimar, France, who was on her way to a missionary assignment in Cleveland. She had passed through security to a different part of the airport at the time of the explosion.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said she did not make her flight out and was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Mason Wells was also in France, about two hours away from Paris, during the attacks in the city last November.
A friend of the Wells family, Chris Lambson, said
: “He’s doing extremely well. His biggest concern right now is about housing at [the University of Utah].”
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