A Mormon missionary named Mason Wells sounded surprisingly chill in the first phone call with his parents back in the U.S. after he was injured in the terrorist attack at an airport and subway in Brussels on Tuesday.
That could be because he has sort of been through this before. Mason Wells was only a block away, watching his mother run the Boston Marathon, when bombs detonated near the finish line in 2013, according to Good Morning America, which captured Wells' phone call home on video. Wells, coincidentally, also happened to be traveling in Paris with his dad last November when an attack in that city killed 130 people.
"Mason, I'm gonna catch a flight over to Paris," his father, Chad Wells said to his son during the call. "I'm just worried about your recovery."
Speaking to ABC News, Chad Wells talked about his family's unfortunate connection to several tragedies.
"This is the third time that sadly in our society that we have a connection to a bomb blast," Chad Wells said. "We live in a dangerous world and not everyone is kind and loving."
Chad Wells told reporters that his son had a ruptured Achilles tendon, shrapnel injuries and burns on his face and hands after being close to the blast inside the airport. Mason Wells was one of a handful of Americans who were injured in the attack, including two other Mormon missionaries he was traveling with. No Americans were believed to have been killed in the bombing.
Two suspects in the Brussels attack were identified by prosecutors as being among the three suicide bombers early this morning, with authorities still searching for at least one other suspect. The Washington Post identified the third suicide bomber through anonymous sources as Najim Laachraoui, who is suspected of making bombs used in the Paris attacks.
