I felt ecstatic all of yesterday still to be alive. But returning to Karrada, the shopping district where the twin blasts killed scores of other young people, I also understood how close I came to death.

The jumble of shops that line the area were still intact but glass fronts were shattered. I was shocked to see that the market stalls that usually clutter the street had disappeared and the area was empty of shoppers. Iraqi soldiers were everywhere, manning checkpoints and inspecting each car that passed with a device to detect explosives.

This made me sad because Karrada had become one of the only places in Baghdad where people felt safe.

Walking up to the front of the mobile phone shop where I had been standing when the first bomb knocked me out, Wissam, the owner, was repainting the walls.

“I blame the army and traffic police for the attacks. They patrol the district 24-hours-a-day and they still failed to stop the terrorists,” he said.

“They keep on talking about how Karrada is secure and safe but in reality every two months we have a similar incident so what safety are they referring to?” he added.

A few stores away Abu Said was surveying the damage to his clothes boutique.

“This is the fifth time I have replaced the windows of my shop. The Government should stop boasting about improved security if they can't stop these bombings,” he said. “This will definitely affect our business. It will take time until people feel safe again to come to our shops.”

I also visited the hospital where two policemen had driven me and several other casualties the previous day. The emergency room was almost empty because most of the patients, many suffering terrible burns, had been moved to a larger hospital.

Only one man, who was too injured to be moved, remained. Impaled by three pieces of metal he had been screaming at the medics about his brother who died in the co-ordinated explosions —- the first caused by a roadside bomb, the other, minutes later, by a man in a suicide vest.

I wanted to say thank you to a female doctor who treated me for a shrapnel injury —- a piece of metal the size of a bullet had been embedded in my left arm. She was not around so I left a message with a colleague.

He said that the scenes from Thursday night were nothing new. After five years of chaos in Baghdad doctors are used to dealing with multiple casualties. It becomes routine.

I am left wondering why I survived when so many perished. I think it is thanks to my mother. She prays for me to stay alive because I am the only person in the family who works full-time.

When I awoke yesterday morning the first thing I did was kiss my mother on the forehead. But I felt a terrible sadness for all those people who will never wake up again, innocent victims who were just trying to live their lives.

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