Tennessean Stranded in Slovakia During Coronavirus Threat

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — The coronavirus outbreak is making it difficult for one Tennessean traveling overseas, to make it back to the U.S.

Thomas Priestley is a teacher in Sewanee.

He took a trip to Bratislava, Slovakia earlier this month to visit family for Spring Break.

He was supposed to fly back last Saturday, but his flight got canceled.

Priestley says he couldn’t risk crossing the border into Austria without a new ticket.

He says if he had to come back to Slovakia, the border is closed to non-nationals, because of the coronavirus.

“One person who worked at the airport was able to tell me that the rules that had been put into place in Austria are actually much stricter than those in Slovakia, so that if I were to try to cross the border to go to the airport without a ticket, I could possibly be put into forced quarantine, and since I didn’t have anywhere to stay in Austria, I didn’t want to find out what that meant, where they might put me, so I opted to stay here in Slovakia,” Priestley said.

Priestley tells News 12 the earliest flight he was able to get back is on April 19.

He’ll continue to stay with family until then.