“The terrorists did not manage to kill me physically but psychologically”

Sylvie Ingels, now 50, was in the departures hall at the time of the two explosions. With her husband and two friends, they were returning from a trip to Thailand. This secretary said she had a feeling on the plane that something was going to happen to her. “I had a panic attack on the plane, I wanted to get out when we were at 20,000 feet”. Once in Zaventem, the woman felt “ashamed and ridiculous”: “I had never behaved like this”.

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It was while leaving the toilets in the departures hall that she heard a “terrible explosion” behind her, with very dense smoke which prevented her from realizing the seriousness of what had just happened. “I was frozen, paralyzed, I mightn’t move.”

It was then that the second explosion sounded, giving rise to “indescribable chaos”. “I curled up on myself, I said to myself that it was now that my life was ending. My thoughts went out to my children. I felt like I was out of control.”

Sylvie Ingels, who was not physically injured, then recovered, refusing to die at the airport. “I can only run away from this hell.”

After taking refuge in the Sheraton hotel for “a few minutes that seemed like hours”, she finally found her husband and immediately got into the car, asking him to leave the place as soon as possible. “He asked me if we mightn’t help the injured people and, I’m ashamed, but I asked him to drive. I just wanted to get my kids back.”

An increasingly difficult daily life

In the wake of the attacks, the 50-year-old was full of nightmares, no longer wanted to go out, no longer ate and cried all day long. His daily life has become increasingly difficult, enamelled with numerous medical appointments, in particular for migraines, dizziness and temporary paralysis of the face.

Sylvie Ingels no longer recognizes herself, going from a joyful personality, full of ambition, with love and humor, to someone constantly anxious, sad, who refuses to go out, who doesn’t unable to work daily because of his health problems and who is gradually losing his friends. The victim sometimes spends days staying at home without seeing her children, whom she can no longer even take care of and whose loss of carelessness she regrets.

“I lost seven years with them,” she sums up. “I have been depriving them of their freedom for years, preventing them from going out, from taking public transport, from going to the cinema because I am too afraid that something will happen to them.”

“They managed to take my carelessness”

“The terrorists may not have succeeded in killing me physically but psychologically yes,” said the witness, who still takes antidepressants and sleeping pills until today. “They managed to take my carelessness, my innocence and that of my children.”

“Do not confuse this beautiful religion with the horrible acts committed by these fanatics,” said the woman who converted to Islam more than 20 years ago.

At the end of the testimony, following saying she was shocked to see all the light put on the terrorists and their rights, the secretary deplored the “complete abandonment” of the government in its search for help. She also castigated the attitude of the medical experts to whom it is necessary to prove the state in which she is. “Do they have the slightest idea of ​​what the ‘blast’ (the breath of the explosion, editor’s note) has as consequences on the human body? “, she wondered, also denouncing how much the fight to have her legitimacy was humiliating and how this situation impacted his family.