TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Year of the Ox had not been a good year for Jack Huang. However, the man from Taiwan managed to get the best out of it, for himself and the people around him.

On Feb.14, the eve of the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar, Huang was injured in the terrorist bomb attack in a popular restaurant in Pune, India.

"I was born in a Year of the Ox. I never thought such major incident would happen to me in the last few hours of the Ox Year," Huang said.

Bad luck in the year was in fact the reason why Huang was in Pune, a popular location for spiritual training, in the first place. After losing his job of 18 years in 2009, the 49-year-old man came to the Osho Ashram in Pune in Jan. 27 for mediation and rest.

According to the Pune Mirror newspaper, Huang was chatting with friends in German Bakery, a restaurant frequented by foreigners, when the explosion took place. He was hit in the right leg by a natural gas can shooting out of a kitchen. However, without realizing he was hurt, Huang rushed to help his two Indian friends who suffered from burns.

After getting his friends and the people around them out of the restaurant, Huang went back inside and pulled two more people out.

"While I was helping them, my clothes caught on fire and I got burns on the limbs" the paper quoted Huang as saying.

After learning his role in saving the victims, local media hailed Huang as "Pune's hero from Taiwan." The Pune authorities also helped transfer him from the Sasson Hospital to a better-equipped private hospital Inlaks & Budhrani.

"Mr. Huang will have good fortune in the future," said Philip Ong, Taiwan's Representative to India, referring to the old Chinese saying: "Good fortune will come to those who survive a catastrophe."

After the incident, Huang said his attitude to life is to "do what makes one happy."

-The China Post/Asia News Network