Who is Karen Northshield ?

Karen’s story is heartbreaking yet inspirational at the same time. 

 The year 2016 was a turning point not only in Belgian history but also for Karen Northshield, a Belgian-American, whose life turned around in a split second.

On the morning of 22 March, 3 explosions went off at the Brussels’ International Airport and the metro station Maelbeek. Without knowing it, Karen was standing right next to the first kamikaze who luggage and bomb went off. In the blink of an eye, she was blown away by the bomb, leaving her on the bare floor of the airport with an open pelvis, multiple hip, leg and foot fractures, severe open intestinal hemorrhage and many other fatal wounds. From one second to the next, she went from an athlete in perfect condition to a war victim covered in war injuries from head to toe.

She was transported in extremis to Brussels’ biggest hospital, where the doctors gave her zero chance of survival. She was hospitalized for a consecutive of 3 and a half years, at death’s door, fighting countless life-threatening infections due to the bomb and explosion. To this day she has underwent more than 60 operations and has hundreds of pieces of the bomb in her body.