ORLANDO, Fla. – A Central Florida couple is sharing their story after returning home from Israel on one of the emergency flights ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
On Sunday, seven people arrived at Orlando International Airport, but around 270 also arrived in Tampa. Ron and Linda Neumann landed in Tampa before making it home to Melbourne.
For the last 18 months, the Neumanns had been living in Rehovot, Israel – about 20 minutes away from Tel-Aviv. Everything changed on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel.
“The Iron Dome was blowing rockets out of the sky that were aiming towards where we were living in the town we were living in,” Ron Neumann said. “And so, and then it just continued, you know, and then we went outside a little bit and looked up and I could see the explosions up in the air.”
As the child of a holocaust survivor, the tragedy hits even harder for Ron as he thinks about his father who escaped and his grandmother who died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz.
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“Where that ties into all of this, there are some similarities, you know, because of the brutality against our Jewish people,” Ron Neumann said. “Unfortunately, some people just hate us for whatever reason. I’m just glad we were able to get out of there.”
Ron, who also served in the Vietnam war, said he was numb to the bombing. His priority was to get his wife Linda, out of danger, but both of her commercial flights out of Israel were cancelled.
“But I’m more worried about Linda, you know? I love her,” Ron Neumann said. “I just wanted to get her out of there. I thought we were going to be stranded. We didn’t know what was going to happen. We didn’t know whether another country was going to jump in and start increasing the bombing and whatever else.”
The couple said they were in their apartment when the bombing started. Linda said she initially thought the explosions were thunder.
“I can’t really explain only someone who’s been through it and know, you know, that you’re under attack from someone,” Linda Neumann said. “We didn’t know who or what, but we just knew that that was the key to run to what we call the safe room. We went in there and that’s how it began.”
Linda tells us all of the newer apartments in Israel have to have a safe room. Ron said the couple went through a scary moment when they couldn’t get the door open and realized they didn’t bring any food into the room for Linda, who is an insulin dependent diabetic.
“After a long period of time, a few hours, I just banged on the side of the handle,” Ron Neumann said. “It clicked open because I was hitting it and I was doing everything I could to get that door open.”
Ron said they tried getting help to get out of Israel with no luck at first. Then they were put in touch with Project Dynamo, a nonprofit working to bring people home from Israel.
The DeSantis administration partnered with the organization by funding the flights.
“She said, ‘We can get you on a plane tomorrow,’ I said got to be kidding me,” Neumann said. “I said, really, I couldn’t believe it that we were actually going to be able to get out of there.”
The couple and their poodle, Annie, could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
“First of all, I was so thankful to be on the plane,” Linda Neumann said. “But until we got above the airspace where those rockets could hit, I wasn’t at ease because you don’t know. But once we got up there, it’s like, oh, thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.”
The Neumann’s said they are grateful for the efforts from Project Dynamo and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“You almost think you’re dreaming, but you don’t,” Linda Neumann said. “The first part was like a nightmare, and you want to wake up and then God, I give God all the glory. Our Lord Jesus is wonderful and he orchestrated all this for us. And I’m so thankful. But all those people and our governor was the best. I mean, we’re in the best state with the best governor. I’m just so thankful he’s stepped up and did what he has done.”
News 6 reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management to see when the next flights would arrive. They tell us more people will arrive in Florida on Wednesday from Israel.
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