Grand Prairie man living in Belgium recounts terror attack

A Grand Prairie man living in Belgium was at the airport in Brussels dropping off his friend when the first bomb in the terrorists attack went off Tuesday morning.

Rocky Gathright and his wife are missionaries and have lived in Belgium on and off since 2007. Their adult children moved back to North Texas. They got the call from their father Tuesday morning.

Justin Gathright is a junior at the University of Texas at Arlington.

 "It makes you feel like something has just happened to you. That something has just happened to your father, to someone you love," Gathright said.

Rocky Gathright was not hurt in the explosion. He spoke to FOX 4 over Skype and recounted what he saw, after dropping off a friend at the Brussels Airport.

"He went into the building. I started to drive away and an explosion happened right behind me. I could not see what was happening but the people began to be frightened and began to run away from the building," Gathright said.

A few seconds later, Gathright said he heard a second blast.

"I was concerned about my friend. i had just let him off. I had just put him in the building. and now these explosions were going off. I decided to park my car, get out and go find him."

Gathright eventually found his friend, who was not hurt. In a Facebook post...he described running out with ceiling tiles falling all around him... and asks friends to pray.

Gathright says the men did what they could to help survivors who were able to run outside.

Back at home, Justin Gathright says he feels helpless when something so terrible is happening close to where a loved one is.

"Knowing that something so traumatic is going on in another place in the world but then realizing you're not there and there's nothing you can do to influence the situation to change what's going on."