'I said run, run!': Eyewitness describes fleeing Brussels airport bombing

(Image credit: Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)

last updated 22 March 2016

In an interview with BBC News, Tom De Doncker, a 21-year-old check-in agent intern at the Brussels airport who safely fled the scene, describes the chaos after the first explosion hit the Brussels airport Tuesday morning. "First we thought it was a billboard coming down and my colleague was looking wondering what it was and I said 'run, run!'"

De Doncker said they ran away from the explosion, his colleague jumped behind a check-in desk, hiding in the luggage carousel, while he ran ahead until the second explosion stopped him in his tracks. "It was like 20 centimeters in front of me there was a big explosion," he said. He was knocked to the ground. "I thought I was hurt, I was hit." De Doncker was able to get to a nearby office where other airport employees were taking refuge. From inside he said he watched from the crack of the door as a soldier pulled someone, wounded or dead, from the scene. "I hope he was not dead, just hit," he said. De Doncker was eventually evacuated to another terminal and then taken outside to safety.

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Lauren Hansen produces The Weekâ€™s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.