NEW DELHI (AP) – A woman sitting bloodied and dazed just moments after the Brussels airport bombings was one of the most haunting images from the attacks.
The woman’s family in India saw the photo after Tuesday’s blasts. They identified her as Nidhi Chaphekar, a 40-year-old Jet Airways flight attendant and mother of two from Mumbai.
“We were searching through the Internet to try and get details of the blasts when we saw the pics,” her brother-in-law Nilesh Chaphekar told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “The first reaction was ‘she’s alive. By God’s grace she is alive.'”
Nidhi Chaphekar’s yellow uniform was apparently shredded from the force of one of the blasts. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face. Another woman in the photo is frantically making a phone call with a bloodied hand.
Chaphekar, who has worked for Mumbai-based Jet Airways for two decades, sat with one leg stretched across airport seating while the other dangled over the floor. A bloodied right foot was raised just enough so it wasn’t hitting shards of broken glass scattered across the floor.