Nadia Tells of Terrifying Escape to West

Gymnast Nadia Comaneci described to a British newspaper how she fled Romania last week under cover of darkness, dodging border guards and walking and crawling for six hours through mud and across frozen rivers.

“I could not say goodby to my parents. I even had to lie to my brother,” Comaneci told the Mail in an interview published Sunday. She is now in the United States.

Comaneci, 14 years old when she made Olympic history with seven perfect 10 scores in the 1976 Montreal games, was interviewed after her arrival in New York Friday.

She said she began her escape from Romania Nov. 26 with the help of Konstantin Panit, a 34-year-old builder living in the United States whom she met four years ago and plans to marry.

“I could not bring anything else with me, not even my precious gold medals or a photograph of my family,” she was quoted as saying.

“It was midnight when we started out, walking through mud and open countryside. We were stumbling and often crawling through water and ice,” Comaneci was quoted as saying. The newspaper said she still bore scratches and bruises on her legs.

“We could carry no torches or any light in case the guards saw us. . . . We saw no guards but we heard their dogs barking in the distance. It was terrifying,” Comaneci said.

“We didn’t even think what would happen if we were caught alive. It almost certainly would have meant going to prison in Romania,” she said.

They reached the Hungarian border after walking for six hours, having veered miles off their planned route, Comaneci told the Mail. She then went on to Vienna before flying to the United States.

Romanian exiles said Comaneci would initially stay with Panit and his family in southern Florida.