Caught in a Terrorist Bomb Blast!

EVEN though a person may be a devout servant of God, he cannot assume that he is going to be miraculously saved from accidents and disasters that occur every day around the world. As an example, take what happened to my little daughter and me on Sunday, July 29, 1979.

While my wife was preparing a meal, I decided to take our four-year-old daughter, Gemma, out to a park in Madrid. But on the way, she asked me to take her to the railway station to see the trains instead. She loves to watch trains, and since the distance was about the same, I agreed.

When we arrived at the station, I bought her ice cream and then we watched the trains arriving and leaving. We strolled around the station and then decided to leave for home. We had walked about 12 yards out of the main hall when my daughter’s attention was drawn to an automatic photography booth. With her childish curiosity she poked her head and shoulders into the booth to see more.

At that very moment a violent explosion took place and a stream of glass fragments whistled past me! I felt a powerful force separate me from Gemma and throw me to the floor some yards away. Then I heard a voice shout out, “A bomb has exploded!” I saw a huge dark cloud issuing forth from the hall from which we had just walked. Many must have died, I thought, as I recalled the crowd we had seen there.

Then something very special made me leap up from the floor as if sprung from a trap. My daughter! My Gemma! I rushed to her. She was sitting on the floor next to the photography booth. “Oh, papa, what has happened?” she asked, frightened. The fact that she had been halfway inside the booth had saved her from the worst part of the blast and from the fragments of glass. Thinking to take her to the hospital, I swept her up from the floor and ran toward the car. When I got there, I found that I had lost the keys! I looked for them in vain, blood soaking our clothing.

I could not find the keys, and was getting desperate. Just at that moment, a taxi stopped at our side! I got in immediately and told the driver to get us to the nearest hospital at once. I placed Gemma on my knees, and when I began to examine her more carefully something terrible struck me. My precious Gemma had a cut on her eyeball! She was looking up at me with a fixed gaze. I tried to console myself, thinking that whatever might happen, Jehovah would undo any injury and make it possible for her to enjoy perfection in his new order here on earth.​—Rev. 21:3, 4.

In actual fact, neither Gemma nor I suffered grave consequences from that terrorist attack. Her eye, after a brief operation, recovered, and doctors say that she will not lose its sight. Others, however, were less fortunate. That same day three bombs exploded in different parts of Madrid. Five people were killed and more than 100 were injured.

But why had we been involved? As the Bible clearly states: “Time and accident happened to them all.” (Eccl. 9:11, “Rotherham”) This experience has taught me to draw nearer to God and to the living hope of his kingdom, which is the only solution for the horrible things that afflict our beautiful earth and the people on it.​—Contributed.