Shrewsbury Woman Describes Evacuating Airport After Brussels Attacks
SHREWSBURY (CBS) - Mariah Boisvert loves to travel. She and her brother, Brian spent ten days in Ghana with their cousin, Mack Jones and were heading home with a sense of gratitude and perspective.
Mariah says she was processing the experience when she and Brian landed in Brussels on the morning of March 22. They had a five-hour layover in Brussels before they expected to board a plane for New York.
Roughly three hours into the layover, Mariah noticed a large crowd of people moving—hurriedly—through the terminal. At first, she thought it was a group tour. But quickly, she realized there was an urgency about the movement.
Moments later, a security guard urged everyone in the terminal to move toward the outermost terminal. He gave no explanation. But Mariah and Brian grabbed their bags and followed.
Back in Shrewsbury, their mother, Maribeth Lynch heard the phone ring. It was her mother, Mary McCauley, on the other end. "Mariah and Brian are in the Brussels airport," Mary explained. "There's been a bomb."
Lynch raced to the TV. The images were horrifying. Lynch had misgivings about the trip to Ghana (third-world country, sanitation, etc.) but she assumed that, once her children arrived in Brussels, they would be safe.
Within minutes, Brian called and assured her they were safe but they didn't know where they were going or how long it would take to get there. Maribeth and her husband, Rick began working on a plan to get Mariah and Brian home.
Eventually, Mariah and Brian got out of the airport. They were told to leave their luggage and get on a bus to a satellite airport property. Once there, Mariah estimates they stood outside for four hours. Then, they took another bus to an empty airplane hangar. They spent another four hours there and saw both the best—and the worst—in their fellow travelers.
Some passengers hoarded the food the airline workers pulled from the plane and distributed. But others exhibited great kindness. When WBZ's Lisa Hughes interviewed Mariah at her family home in Shrewsbury, she was still wearing the clothing a stranger gave her when the woman realized that Mariah—dressed in shorts and a T-shirt—was cold. "So many acts of kindness," Mariah remembers.
Back in the U.S., Rick was booking a hotel for Mariah and her brother outside Brussels. The brother and sister arrived—tired and grateful--14 hours after they arrived at the Brussels airport.
Related: Mass. College Students Survive Brussels Attacks
Wednesday, they took a train from Brussels to Amsterdam. Security was extraordinarily tight. Police seemed to be stationed every few feet, Mariah says. On Thursday afternoon, they flew from Amsterdam to JFK.
Maribeth met them at the airport and says she will never forget the moment she saw them. "The whole world's been spinning since Tuesday morning and it stood still when I saw them moving down the escalator. And I really, honestly took a moment to thank God for bringing them home this way."
Mariah knows, processing the attacks—and her proximity to them—will take time. She says being able to talk to Brian will help. "The whole time, I was so grateful to be with him every step of the way. He has a way of getting me to where I need to be and protecting me." She says they are "worlds closer" now.
But will the Brussels attacks change her passion for traveling? Mariah insists they won't. In fact, next year, she plans to follow in Mack's footsteps and study abroad for a semester. Where? She doesn't know. But she has no reservations about living overseas.
And that is reassuring for Maribeth. "We have to freely encourage them to explore the world without fear. Fearlessness is important. Passion--to be able to explore--is the gift we need to give our children. They need to be anchored by their family and their faith. And they take that with them wherever they go."
