A phone call awakened Judith Duffy about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, as her frightened daughter called from Brussels moments after a blast had rocked the airport there. Cate Duffy of Natick had been nearby as a second bomb went off, but she and two friends escaped unharmed.

“We knew about it before it hit the news,’’ Judith Duffy said a day after the terror attacks that killed 31 people and injured 300 others in the Belgian capital. She said she was “terrified’’ for her daughter.

Family members of Cate Duffy and Lauren Cleary of Abington on Wednesday discussed their experiences communicating with their daughters as the scope of the violence became clear.

The Quinnipiac University students from Massachusetts were in Brussels on a visit while studying abroad in Cork, Ireland, and they plan to continue to travel — despite their parents’ apprehensions.

Fellow student Monica Hall of Sutton was also with the women when the bombs went off in the Zaventem airport in Brussels.

As the women ran from the attack, they managed to convince a Good Samaritan driving from the airport to give them a ride away from the chaos, according to their parents.

Judith Duffy said the driver called his wife and asked her what to do; she urged him to bring them to the US embassy.

The students spent Tuesday night with a State Department employee, Richard Cleary said.

The students had been on their way to London Tuesday to see an Adele concert. On Wednesday, the women said the violence had not deterred them from continuing their spring break trip around Europe, according to Richard Cleary, father of Lauren Cleary.

He said he would like to see his daughter and her friends cut short their tour and return to Ireland where she would be in a college environment once again. But, he said, “it’s a once in a lifetime thing,’’ and Lauren Cleary still wants to see Europe.

Judith Duffy said the women were on “Good Morning America,’’ and were able to get a ride to a train station from a producer. They are now on their way to Switzerland. Duffy said she had urged her daughter to avoid Paris, and she had agreed. But she insists on more travel.

“They don’t want to let them win, I guess,’’ she said. “I’m going to be paying much closer attention to world events and things that are going on.’’

Cate Duffy returns to the United States in May, her mother said. She added, “I’m already planning the party for when she gets home.’’

John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.