A Too-Close Encounter

By Mia Freneaux
    Matt McCoy has a job that takes him all over the world.  Working on behalf of the largest petrochemical companies, he must inspect and verify that equipment these companies order has been built to specification.  This has taken him to 23 different countries over the years, and opened him up to experiencing all sorts of situations, none so harrowing as what occurred in Brussels on March 22. 
    Matt was on a usual business trip which carried him to an inspection in Germany, then scheduled him to arrive in Holland several days later.  In the break between the two meetings, he decided to call on a business associate in Brussels.  He came into Brussels on a train which deposited him at the Bruxelles- Midi Station, about a mile and a half from the Central (or Malbeek) Station and about 9 miles from the airport.  Staying in a hotel near the Midi Station, he slept with his window open, “so I can hear the sounds of the city at night,” Matt shared. 
    At about 8:00 in the morning, he heard a loud bang.  “I thought at first it was a garbage truck, but then I heard the second explosion.  I knew something was definitely wrong.  It was only 4-5 days after the arrest of one of the men responsible for the Paris attacks.  I thought, ‘They’re not going to blow up their own area in Brussels’ (there is a large population of Arabs living in a section of the city –ed.).  Boy, was I wrong.”  Terrorists had bombed the airport and the Malbeek Station.
    The hotel, along with the entire city, was put in lockdown immediately.  No transportation of any kind was available anywhere.  Matt remembered, “The news stations were reporting that the police were jamming all phone communication, but fortunately I was able to contact my wife.  Facebook also offered ‘Check In Safe’, a system where they can know from your location if you are in a dangerous place and will automatically with the press of a button alert your connections that you are safe.”  
    The next hours were spent hearing endless sirens going off in every direction and scrambling to find some way to get to Holland.  “I was actually scheduled to depart for Holland a few hours later from the same station the bomb had been detonated in.  It was very tense, there were no guarantees that there would be any transportation out of Belgium.   Finally at around 8:30 that night, the hotel managed to locate a cab for me to take me to Antwerp.”
    The cabbie “didn’t stop for red lights, stop signs; he ran through roundabouts.  When we reached the Autobahn, we were passing vehicles travelling at 85 miles per hour like nothing.  We were probably going about 115 miles per hour down that highway.” The total charge for that 25 mile trip?  $237.13.  Matt barely arrived in time for his meeting in Holland the next day.   
    As Matt got out of the cab and tipped his driver that day, “I told that cabbie, who was an Arab man, ‘You need to keep an open mind and be good with the world.’ He was young.  Hopefully, it sticks.”