Staying Alive: Jakarta Bombing Survivor Tells His Story

July 27, 2009— -- American businessman and international investor James Castle is no stranger to playing the odds. For years, he's calculated the risks and rewards of Western investment in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

But Castle said he never imagined the odds of being a victim of a suicide bombing -- much less surviving -- twice.

"We have to be lucky every day. [The terrorists] only have to be lucky once. The odds are in their favor that from time to time they will create atrocities," he said.

Just after 7:45 a.m. on July 16, Castle, 62, was holding a weekly breakfast meeting for business executives in the lobby of the Jakarta J.W. Marriott when a bomb tore through the building.

It was the second time in six years that the Jakarta hotel was targeted by suicide bombers -- and the second time Castle was inside and survived. He's now speaking out about his experience.

"I'm one of the fortunate ones," he told "Good Morning America." "One ear is a little bit bad but it should recover no problem."

At least nine people were killed in the bombing, which tore through the ground level of the J.W. Marriott and nearby Ritz Carlton. Dozens were injured.

"When you're on the inside of one of these things, it just happens and then you react," he said.

"We were talking, and then one minute a big cloud of smoke and flash? I was knocked backward and kind of felt it was a bad dream. Then I realized it wasn't a dream, and I could hardly breathe," he said.

Castle said he tried to climb over the rubble and debris toward the nearest window.

"My first moment of fear was that I couldn't breathe, and I thought I could really suffocate," he said. "It's like breathing in sand and dirt because there's everything in the air -- all the grit from whatever blew up."

Minutes later the sprinkler system came on, and a burst of cold water washed over the destruction. "It was the sweetest thing I'd felt in a long long time," Castle said. He eventually made it out of a nearby window along with several other survivors.