UMass alum in Nice writes it was ‘chance luck’ that kept him away from deadly attack
For University of Massachusetts alum and Bloomberg news writer Phil Serafino, France is his “adopted home.”
So when he avoided violence caused by terrorism for the second time in 8 months, Serafino wrote a first person account for Bloomberg news about the Thursday night massacre that left at least 84 people dead.
“It was pure fate, chance luck, that I avoided being caught up in the July 14 massacre,” he wrote in the article published late that night.
In the essay, Serafino described how he almost encouraged his group of friends to go see Thursday’s Bastille Day fireworks, and that it was only “a Thai dinner and a bottle of Provencal wine” that distracted the group from making it to the event.
Serafino wrote that during the terror attack in Paris last year, he had a similar close call.
“I’d seen the same thing in my Paris neighborhood after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks that left 130 people dead, including victims at a cafe and pizza restaurant on my street,” he wrote. “I’d walked by those businesses just two hours before the attack, en route to dinner with the same friends who we’re now visiting in Nice.”
He added that both attacks “… really brought home to me how lives can hinge on the smallest decisions, ones that seem utterly inconsequential at the time.”
Read Serafin’s full account at Bloomberg News.
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