California teacher Sarah Krivanek, barely able to see straight from what she calls “hell on Earth” conditions in a prison camp in Russia, stepped foot into freedom at LAX Friday.
"What’s it like for you to be home, right now, stepping here?" NBCLA asked.
"I’m really, really, really exhausted physically," she said.
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Originally from Fresno, Krivanek was teaching English in Russia.
For 11 months she says she was forced to work at labor camps after being convicted of using a knife to protect herself in a domestic fight with her boyfriend in Moscow. She shared photos of how she was left in that beating.
Last month, sharing with a Russian court why she begged to be freed.
"When they moved me to the colony, it shocked my world," Krivanek said. "This kind of work is like slavery; you work in the factory where the conditions were really, really bad."
But her friends never gave up on her.
"It’s a miracle today," her friend Carolyn Spurrier said.
Anita Martinez was the driving force to get human rights groups in the country to step in, and prove Krivanek acted in self-defense.
"They had gone to see Brittney Griner and accidentally ran into Sarah there and realized, 'why didn’t we know there was another American there?'" Martinez said.
"She’s like a bulldog on a meat wagon. I think the Russians should be scared of her," Krivanek said. "Without her I don’t know if anyone would’ve found me to be honest."
Krivanek says she had no help from the U.S. government in getting her release, except the flight home which friends have helped set up a GofundMe account to repay the loan, among other necessities she’ll need now that she’s back home.
“I’m overwhelmed, I feel self-conscious because I’m in prison – you know what I mean? I don’t look well, I look tired,” she said. "These clothes are literally clothes I found in prison."
