SANDY, Utah -- You may remember Mason Wells, a young man from Sandy, who was injured in a terrorist attack in the Brussels airport in 2016.
The former missionary has written a book about his experience, but Friday he released a video with a message for his attackers.
Mason Wells was only 16-years-old when he experienced terror for the first time. He was with his father, Chad Wells, cheering on his mother, Kymberly Wells, as she ran in the Boston marathon in 2013.
"We were in that chaotic situation in public where everything seems to lose control and you really got to resort to your own tactics to get to safety," Chad Wells said.
Then three years later, terror struck again.
"It was the worst morning of my life," Chad Wells said.
Mason was serving an LDS mission in Brussels when a bomb exploded in the airport, feet away from him.
"There were about ten minutes that morning we didn't know if he was alive or dead," Chad Wells said.
He suffered several third degree burns and a big piece of shrapnel shredded his Achilles, breaking his heel in six places, but he was already thinking about forgiveness.
"He had written a letter to the terrorists while he was sitting in his hospital bed, and he was expressing his feelings and his frustrations and also his desire to overcome this," Chad Wells said.
That letter turned into a video, released Friday by the website Mic, where Mason publicly forgives his attackers.
"To the Bakraoui brothers who injured me on March 22nd at the Brussels airport I have something to say to you. I still carry scars from that day but despite those scars I've chosen to forgive you," says Mason Wells in the Mic video.
The video was a surprise to his parents but the message behind it wasn't.
"It's something he's been sharing all along is this message of hope and forgiveness," Chad Wells said.
"He has searched for that peace and he has decided to have faith, and we're just really proud of him," Kymberly Wells said.
Mason has also wrote this book about his experience called “Left Standing”.
