Mikel Merino recalls Dortmund bus attack: “I’m lucky to be alive”

“I saw blood, smoke, screams… I’m lucky to be alive.” Mikel Merino has recalled the attack on Borussia Dortmund’s bus in 2017, as the team was travelling to a Champions League match against Monaco. Marc Bartra was injured, as was a police officer who was unable to return to work afterwards.

Merino also describes feeling that he had escaped the worst, saying he believes his “guardian angel” protected him. He was 20 at the time of the attack. “I think a lot of young people don’t even believe it happened, or realise how serious it was, but it marked all of us,” he says. He remembers a deafening noise, followed by the bus almost overturning. When he looked back, he saw blood on the floor, smoke and people screaming. That same evening, he was at the hospital waiting for Marc Bartra, whose wrist had been badly injured.

Bartra’s account offers another glimpse of the attack’s severity. In 2017, he told the television programme El Hormiguero, on Antena 3, that while he was in the ambulance, all he could think about was being alive, despite the pain in his arm. After the operation, the doctor told him he could play again in a month. His fracture was clean and had not damaged the tendons or ligaments.

The attack was carried out by Sergej Wenergold, who detonated three explosive devices placed near hedges as the bus passed. He was charged with 28 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. At his trial, he said he had not intended to kill anyone and had carried out the attack to make money by betting on a fall in Borussia Dortmund’s share price.

Through these memories, Merino stresses the lasting impact of the events: “It marked all of us.” His account is a reminder that, on the way to a match, players and staff were confronted with violence whose images and sensations remained with them years later.