Rodney the luckiest man alive?
21/08/2003 10:49  - (SA)  

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Bomb made from Saddam stocks Iraq: 'Mistakes all around' UN will carry on in Iraq - Annan Bomb victim was top man at UN UN stunned by bomb attack Wall couldn't stop bomb Huge explosion rocks UN headquarters

Sydney - An Australian land-mine expert survived the devastating explosion at the United Nations offices in Baghdad, less than a year after narrowly escaping injury in the Bali bombings, according to a news report Thursday.

Melbourne-born Rodney Cocks, 27, was in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad when a truck bomb exploded outside the building on Tuesday, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

Cocks was in Iraq with a mine clearance unit.

The newspaper said that moments before the explosion, Cocks got up from his desk in the hotel, about 15m from the centre of the blast, and walked to another office looking for a phone number.

"I was standing there, and the next thing I know I was covered in glass," Cocks told the newspaper.

"I was on the floor, bleeding. I couldn't breathe, there was thick black smoke all around and fire."

Last October, Cocks - on leave from duty in East Timor with the Australian army - was about 40m from Paddy's Bar when the first of two explosions rocked Kuta, killing 202 people, including 88 Australians.

"I'm sore and battered, but I can't believe my luck," he told the newspaper.

"Someone is looking after me. If I had been at my desk, I would have been dead."

- AP

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