A pair of New Yorkers say they narrowly escaped death Tuesday at the Brussels Airport, walking away from a check-in kiosk seconds just before deadly blasts.
"The second explosion was f---ing huge," said Jason Jacques. "It was fire across the ceiling as far as you could see.... I thought the building would come down."
Jaqcques, from Manhattan's Upper East Side, said he and Donald Gajadhar, of Brooklyn, were about to fly back to New York City from the Belgian capital on the day of the attacks that killed 31 people, including a woman on her way to New Jersey for her sister's wedding, and injured more than 200 others.
They decided to step away from the check-in counter to redeem a shopping tax refund. While they were there they heard the first blast, followed by a more violent second explosion.
"People were running, blood was flying, ceilings were collapsing, smoke was billowing everywhere," Jacques said. "Time just kind of stood still."
He added "I thought, another Paris, they're coming with guns. We're under attack."
Jacques and Gajadhar made it out unscathed. They said they were rocked by the harrowing experience.
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"Death's coming whenever it's due," Gajadhar said. "You can't cheat it."
They weren't the only people with tri-state ties to narrowly escape injury in the attacks. Ashley Bruggemann of New Jersey was passing through the departure hall of Brussels Airport where the attack happened, on her way to Copenhagen after a work trip in Brussels, when she suddenly saw people running toward her.
Bruggemann said she never heard the explosions. She only saw the carnage on the news later.
People in the airport were shepherded to a hangar and to outside of the airport after the attack, where they waited for two hours, she said.
She returned to her parents' home in Wyckoff Wednesday after she and other coworkers drove 3.5 hours to Paris, from where they flew back to the U.S. When her parents woke up Tuesday to news of the attack, they were alarmed, knowing their daughter was at their airport -- but then saw her text letting them know she was OK.
Bruggemann, who had studied abroad in Brussels and considers it her second home, said she won't let the attacks terrorize her and she plans to continue to travel. She told NBC 4 New York she feels extremely fortunate and is grateful.
Three students at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University were also in the airport at the time of the explosions.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
