After 10 days stranded in the Middle East, Mass. resident is back home

Hingham resident Stacey Schuhwerk is back home after spending 10 days stranded in the Middle East as the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and airports across the region were shuttered.

They finally arrived in the U.S. Monday morning, following an ordeal that left them frightened, frustrated with the U.S. government, and finally, relieved.

" I feel like a new person," Schuhwerk told WBUR from Hingham, where, she said, the small comforts of home felt like a huge gift. "I'm definitely happy to be here."

Shuhwerk and her son, Tyler Paretchan, were among tens of thousands of Americans unable to get home when war started earlier this month. The first leg of their flight home from a vacation in the Seychelles landed them in Doha, Qatar, but that's as far as they got. The war had started and Iran was raining missiles on cities across the region, including Doha.

As they hunkered down in their hotel, Schuhwerk said, they could see and hear the explosions. The airport shut down and air traffic stopped. The roads closed, and the Qatari government urged people to shelter in place. So, Schuwerk and her son were stranded, and it became clear to her that the Trump Administration had no plan for the tens of thousands of Americans stuck in the region.

After eight days in Doha, Schuhwerk and her son paid $2,000 to a private driver who took them across the border to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — a 15-hour journey. They had  booked a Virgin Atlantic flight to London, but when they got to the airport in Riyadh, they faced a new problem.

"They closed the airspace because there were incoming missiles," Schuhwerk said, which meant their flight, along with hundreds of others in and out of Riyadh, were canceled. They were stuck again.

After spending all night at the airport, they headed to a hotel, where they happened to meet a busload of Americans. It turned out they were from the U.S. embassy in Bahrain, which had come under attack by Iran. A U.S. Navy team was deployed to help get the group home, and the team agreed to let Schuhwerk and Paretchan join them, boarding a government charter flight back to the U.S.

"They could not have been more kind," said Schuhwerk, adding that her former husband is a military veteran who fought in Desert Storm, and that she's a supporter of the U.S. military. But she blames "the people at the top" of the Trump administration for failing to have a plan to get people like her out of the region.

"They failed us," she said.

According to the State Department, more than 36,000 Americans have returned to the U.S. since the war began. Some arrived on U.S. government charter flights, but most made their way home without government help.

Congressman Stephen Lynch, whose district includes Schuhwerk's hometown of Hingham, said the administration should have done "a better job" to avoid stranding so many Americans in the region.

"Since this was a war of choice, the president could have put out a travel advisory to people in the region to advise them to come home," Lynch told WBUR. "That would have allowed a lot of people to get out a lot sooner and a lot more safely."

On top of everything Schuhwerk endured, she's due to start breast cancer treatment later this week. She said her prognosis is good, and that officials from the U.S. embassy in Bahrain and their families needed help more than she did. Still, she said, it was important for her to get home as soon as possible.

"Cancer is scary," she said, and nobody wants to start their treatment late. "So, I was trying like hell to get home for that."

When they landed in Washington, D.C. early Monday morning, Schuhwerk switched on her phone and found an email from the U.S. State Department: It said the government finally had a plan to get her out of the region — on a flight from Riyadh to Athens.

But after 10 days, Schuhwerk and her son were already home.