Dr. Jay Miller's family had been on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to India
NEED TO KNOW
- Dr. Jay Miller was en route home to the U.S. from India when the U.S.-Iran conflict left him stranded in Qatar
- The U.S. State Department did not offer relocation assistance to Americans abroad, leaving thousands stranded in the Middle East
- Miller took matters into his own hands, traveling across four countries to make it home to New Orleans
Dr. Jay Miller was en route home to New Orleans after a family vacation in India when his Qatar Airlines flight made an unexpected U-turn.
The date was Feb. 28, and unbeknownst to Miller, President Donald Trump had announced that the U.S. was taking "massive and ongoing" military action against Iran.
Iran retaliated against the U.S. and Israel with rockets and drones. Airspaces across the Middle East were closed.
Back on the ground, the scene, with airstrikes igniting over the Persian Gulf, "looked like the 4th of July," Miller told Louisiana outlet WDSU News. "This is absolutely terrifying."
Miller was among the thousands of Americans who happened to be traveling abroad in the Middle East when the conflict broke out.
David Dweck, a Florida resident who was in Israel when the conflict broke out on Feb. 28, told PEOPLE on March 3 that he called the State Deparment's number for Americans experiencing emergencies abroad. After 12 minutes on the phone, Dweck said he was told via a recording that he should not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure.
"I called numerous times, and that was the same message, which, frankly is lousy PR for the U.S. government," Dweck told PEOPLE. "I think the American government — with that phone number and everything else — they need to step up and do a better job to get people home."
A spokesperson for the State Department previously told PEOPLE on March 5 that the agency had "directly assisted 10,000 Americans in the Middle East looking to depart the region" and that it was working round-the-clock to bring Americans home.
On March 10, the Associated Press reported that the State Department approved up to $40 million in emergency funds for Americans to leave the Middle East during the conflict. The State Department said in a statement on March 10 that over 40,000 American citizens have returned to the U.S. from the Middle East since Feb. 28.
Miller, a pulmonary specialist who had left India ahead of his family to return to his patients, told The New York Times that it was "one of the moments when you tell your spouse you love them, which I did."
Credit: WDSU News/YouTube
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Miller and his wife, Swathi Narra, who was still back in India with the couple's daughter, placed their bets on booking a flight departing Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the closest operating airport.
Miller admitted the plan felt “so crazy and far-fetched.” To make his flight from Riyadh to Addis Abba, Ethiopia, Miller had to hire three drivers to travel nine hours, which totaled around $3,000.
At King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, most departing flights were canceled, but Miller was lucky to fly out on a packed Ethiopian Airlines flight. From there, he had a 15-hour layover, spent partially at the National Museum of Ethiopia, before catching a flight (which had a refueling layover in Rome) to Chicago.
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Finally, about a week after his Qatar Airlines flight made its initial U-turn, Miller was on a United Airlines flight direct from Chicago to New Orleans. His first step when he finally opened his front door was to crack open a beer, then promptly fall into a deep 16-hour sleep.
The whole ordeal, Miller told WDSU News, "puts life in a new perspective."
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