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Four LDS Missionaries Injured in Brussels Bombings

Four missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were among those injured in the bombings at the Brussels Airport Tuesday.

Three of the missionaries are from Utah. The LDS Church says  66-year old Richard Norby of Lehi, 20-year-old Joseph Dresden Empey of Santa Clara and 19-year-old Mason Wells of Sandy were escorting a fourth missionary, 20-year-old Fanny Rachel Clain of France, to the Brussels airport Tuesday morning.

Clain was heading to a mission assignment in Ohio and had made it through security when the two bombs went off. She was hospitalized with minor injuries, while the three missionaries from Utah were taken to the hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries.

Empey’s parents said in a statement that their son was treated for 2nd degree burns on his hands, face and head and had surgery to remove shrapnel in his legs but was in good spirits.

Lt. Governor Spencer Cox told KUER he had recently met with the Belgian Ambassador.

“We already felt a sense of solidarity,” he said. “I think these terrible acts just bring us that much closer and realize that we need to continue to work together to make sure that these events don’t occur in the future.”

Cox also expressed his condolences for the families of the missionaries and the other victims in Brussels.

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