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New Jersey teen who got stuck in Israel amid war with Iran finally returns home
New Jersey teen finally back home after getting stuck in Israel during war with Iran
New Jersey teen finally back home after getting stuck in Israel during war with Iran
New Jersey teen finally back home after getting stuck in Israel during war with Iran
A New Jersey teen who was stuck in Israel as it exchanged missile strikes with Iran is finally back home.
Abigail Inglis, 17, was living on a campus outside Tel Aviv as part of a two-month semester abroad program, but once war broke out, it was a week of trying to get home to Bergenfield.
"I was like, I'm literally never leaving"
Abigail was supposed to return to New Jersey on June 18. Instead, she was sending text messages to her worried mother reading "heavy missiles [right now]" and "in shelter."
She showed CBS News New York's Jenna DeAngelis videos she captured of missiles overhead in the night sky.
"It was definitely very, like, scary, but this was happening every night, multiple times a night," Abigail said.
It became so frequent, she and her classmates slept in the shelter for a week.
"These were the sirens we would hear every night that was basically telling us get to the shelter now," Abigail said, playing another video.
At one point, the group had plans to leave on a flight out of the country, but it was canceled a short time later, Abigail says.
"I actually texted my mom and I was like, I'm literally never leaving," she said.
"It was, like, the best experience of my life"
Hours later, Abigail was awakened from her sleep and rushed onto a boat to Cyprus to begin the long journey back to the United States.
"Everyone was just, like, trying to get on as fast as they could and leave. It was very intense, and it was 16 hours," she said. "And then we finally got a flight from Cyprus to Athens, and then Athens to JFK ... I couldn't wait to get my bag at JFK and just go out those doors to see my family."
"Not until she landed at JFK and I saw her and I grabbed her did I realize that, like, she was really back," mom Jocelyn Inglis said.
Abigail returned home with an Israeli flag signed by all her new friends from the semester abroad program. She plans to hang it up in her room.
"It was, like, the best experience of my life. Through everything that happened at the end, it didn't change my love for Israel," she said. "Anytime I could, I would love to go back."
