Lexington Man Returns Home Safely From Istanbul after terrorist attack

Seth Collins says he’s relieved to finally be back home after the attacks in Instanbul. He’s relieved even more so because he had spent the last year away from family teaching English in China.

On his way home to Lexington Collins stopped in Istanbul for about a week and a half to visit with friends. At the time he was considering extending his trip, but when he got the text from a friend the night before leaving letting him know about the incident at the airport he wanted to get home as soon as possible.

Luckily he found out just 15 minutes after it had happened and was able to hold a seat on a flight at a nearby airport. His airline didn’t even hear about the attack yet till he had called them.

Collins is an avid traveler and has been to Ataturk airport many times. He says although he’s familiar with all the violence happening in that part of the world, it’s obviously something he, like many, never expected to happen while he was there.

Collins says, “There’s the moment of fright at first and you realize of course you’re not actually there. But still if it can happen once, do they have other plans? Is this going to keep going on? But luckily they took care of it. And I made it home safe.”

Collins says the attack doesn’t make him any less likely to travel abroad in the future. He says giving in to that notion would just give the terrorists what they want.