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Cincinnati couple change plan to visit Parliament, just miss terror attack in London

Restaurant owner Andrew Gomez and wife safe
Posted at 6:13 PM, Mar 22, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-23 08:10:42-04

If not for a last-minute change of plans, a Cincinnati couple could have been near Parliament in London during Wednesday’s terrorist attack.

Speaking by phone, local restaurateur Andrew Gomez told WCPO he and his wife Julie were on the subway headed to Parliament. But when they emerged from the Tube,  Julie suggested they go to the London Eye – the gigantic ferris wheel – instead.

"Julie goes, ‘Hey, it's not raining anymore. Let's go do the London Eye instead of Parliament right now,’ so we started walking across the bridge," said Gomez,  who owns Gomez Salsa in Over-the-Rhine and Walnut Hills.

They walked over the River Thames on the Westminster Bridge and when they got to the Eye they found out what had happened.

"We were about to be the next group on the London Eye. The staff wouldn't give us any reason, but they just started saying, ‘Hey, everyone’ - they got their megaphones out - ‘you’ve got to turn around and go back and get out of the area.’"

RELATED: At least four dead in London terror attack

Back home in Cincinnati, his father, Frank Gomez, had no idea his son was so close to the terror attack.

“I saw it on TV and I said, 'I wonder’ and I said, ‘No they can't be around there’ and yes, they were," Frank Gomez said.

Back in London, Andrew Gomez was thankful.

"There was way more people that were in a worse situation than we were and I'm praying for them,” Andrew Gomez said. “We hope that they can all find resolve in this."

Gomez said he and his wife will be headed to Paris in a day or so and the thought of a terror attack in crowded areas is definitely on his mind.