Mormon missionaries Mason Wells, 19, and Joseph Empey, 20, of Utah. Both were injured in the explosions at Zaventem airport in Brussels. Photograph: Joseph Empey/AP
An American Mormon missionary wounded in the Brussels attacks had also been close to the scene of the Boston marathon explosion it has emerged.
Mason Wells, 19, was injured with Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20, fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when two bombs exploded in Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning.
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The trio had been taking a French colleague to the airport when the suicide bombing took place.
In a strange twist of fate Wells, from Utah, had a similarly close call three years ago while in Boston accompanying his mother who was running the marathon.
The event was the target of a terror attack that killed three and wounded scores more.
“He was a block away,” Bishop Scott Bond of the Latter Day Saints Church in Sandy, Utah, told The New York Daily News.
“It’s incredible he’d be so close to more than one of these,” Bond said. “I think any of us would be seriously shaken, but I think he’s someone who could handle this better than anybody. He’s the kind of young man to somehow turn this into a positive. He’s a terrific young man.”
Brussels terror attacks: how events unfolded – video explainerNBC 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.
“This is his third terrorist attack,” his father Chad Wells told ABC News.
“This is the third time that sadly in our society that we have a connection to a bomb blast,” he said. “We live in a dangerous world and not everyone is kind and loving.”
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.
Wells “has burns to his hands and legs and some to his face,” Lloyd Coleman told the paper.
“Most of the damage is around his foot and ankle. A heel took the most damage, and the doctors are repairing it, but the family doesn’t know how bad the injury is.”
The US Air Force said one of its service members and several of his relatives were also injured in Tuesday’s terror attacks in the Belgian capital that killed at least 31 people.
“The United States Air Force can confirm that one US Air Force service member from Joint Force Command Brunssum, the Netherlands, was injured in today’s horrific attack at the airport in Brussels,” a statement said, referring to a Nato command.
“The airman’s family was also present and has sustained various injuries. Due to privacy concerns, we are not releasing the status of their injuries.”
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report