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Brussels airport survivor: Getting home to US will mean facing my fears

Sheerine Naraghi was in the Brussels airport with her boyfriend, Jeff Hoffman when a pair of bombs went off during Tuesday morning's attacks.
/ Source: TODAY

Surviving the bomb blasts during the terror attack on the airport in Brussels left American Sheerine Naraghi shaken — but she knows she will have to face her fears if she wants to return home.

Naraghi was in the airport with her boyfriend, Jeff Hoffman, a consultant for NATO, when a pair of bombs went off during Tuesday's attacks across the city.

"I don't really ever want to step foot back there again, but I need to get home, so I'm going to do what I have to do,'' Naraghi told Matt Lauer in a live interview on TODAY Wednesday. "It's going to be difficult, but I have to be brave, be strong."

"I'm lucky enough to be able to go home and see my family, and a lot of people aren't that lucky, so I'm just trying to keep telling myself that," Naraghi said with Hoffman at her side. "Don't think of it as you're going back to a terrible place, think about it's your catalyst to get home."

Hoffman and Naraghi were both in the terminal when the initial blast occurred. It was "almost like a tornado going off," according to Naraghi's telling.

"It was pretty clear after seeing the terror on (Hoffman's) face that it wasn't an accident,'' she said.

"The unsettling thing for me personally was after the second explosion, there was actually dead silence,'' Hoffman said. "That was the most unnerving part. It was almost as if everyone was gone in a moment."

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