N.J. Man Feels Bond With Belgium After Surviving Brussels Attacks
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A New Jersey man narrowly survived the attacks in Brussels this week, having been in the airport when the bombs went off.
Gabriel Chan described the harrowing experience to CBS2's Sonia Rincon.
The New Jersey businessman had just picked up his suitcase at the Brussels Airport at Zaventem early Tuesday, and was looking for his driver when he felt the blast.
"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.
It was a sudden feeling of clarity in the middle of a cloud of debris and confusion.
"My instincts were just to try to survive and make sure I would get through it," Chan said. "And the screaming and the crying just was deafening."
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As soon as he could, he made sure his family knew he was safe.
"He said, 'I just went through a lot of things I should have never saw in my whole live and I should never have experienced because they were very sad,'" said Chan's son, Lucas Chan, 12. "So I'm very grateful that my dad survived the bomb and I never want to have an experience like what my dad had."
Chan wasn't the only American to experience the horror. Mason Wells, 19, of Utah was severely burned.
"We were really close," Wells said from a hospital bed. "I was lucky to escape with what I did."
Wells was also at the Boston Marathon the day of the bombing there on April 15, 2013. He was just reunited with his parents in the last day.
Chan said the tragedy and the humanity he witnessed makes him feel a sense of solidarity with the people of Brussels. He said as someone from the New York area, he understands having one's home attacked by terrorists.
On Friday, Chan visited the Belgian Consulate to pay respects, accompanied by two of his children and his mother who's a retired psychiatric nurse.
"I've worked with people who've had PTSD like 40 years after something happened to them, and it was in there all the time. But I've never seen it raw like this," said Chan's mother, Dorothy Mullen. "And we're trying to show him that it's good to cry and it's good to let your emotions out because it's so awful if you stuff it."
BRUSSELS ATTACKS: Photos | Videos | Coverage From CBS News
Chan was greeted by a diplomat inside who accepted the flowers he brought.
"I said: 'It's a small token and gesture. My heart goes out to the people of Belgium. I have a bond with you for the rest of my life,'" Chan said.
Chan said he is thinking constantly of people who were not as lucky as he was to get home to his family unhurt.
