Suicide Blast Kills 24 At International Airport (On Surviving A Suicide Bombing - Part II)

I walked away with only a bloody nose, a concussion and multiple lacerations and contusions caused by flying shrapnel and debris.

Had I not taken a knee to double-knot my boot laces at the exact moment the bomber completed the circuit to his suicide vest . . . well, suffice to say mine would have been a closed-casket funeral.

Pink mist doesn't take up much room in a standard-size casket.

I found out later that the suicide vest had been packed with improvised shrapnel, a pre-formed fragmentation matrix consisting of nuts, bolts, ball bearings and nails, to ensure the maximum amount of collateral damage would be inflicted upon the target.

I know this because the navy corpsman ended up pulling six nails out of both of my forearms. Thankfully the velocity at which the shrapnel entered my body was significantly diminished prior to piercing the skin - I was left with only superficial flesh wounds that healed with time.

The woman in front of me however was not as lucky. The fact that those same nails shredded her internal organs and helped shatter every bone in her body before hitting me likely undercut most of their momentum, inadvertently saving my life as a result.