DALLAS — Sabria Dean, a professional basketball player from Dallas, captured the chaos of her time in Tehran as U.S.-Iran tensions escalated, sharing her experience after safely returning home to North Texas.
Since September, Dean had been playing professionally in Iran. During the playoffs, she was staying at a hotel with her teammates—most of whom were Iranian—when airstrikes hit the city.
“It was a loud noise, but I literally was asking them, ‘what was that?’” Dean recalled. Her teammates urged her to contact family back home. “We were on group FaceTime, and my brother answered first… His mouth dropped to the floor. He was like, oh my gosh,” she said.
Dean described the strikes as intense and physically overwhelming. “It felt like the ground shook, it kind of vibrated my body, like the whole 30-second sequence of that was insane.”
Her team’s general managers quickly organized an escape plan. A driver transported Dean 13 hours to Turkey before she continued her journey with a 12-hour layover and a 13-hour flight back to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where family and her dog, Sadie Mea, greeted her.
Dean credited both her faith and her teammates for helping her cope. She carried what she called her “blessed oil,” which she used during the ordeal. “I had nothing else that I could do,” she said.
Despite the frightening experience, Dean said her time in Iran was largely positive. “The culture is great, even with the differences in religion and government. Nobody ever treated me badly,” she said.
Dean is still processing her experience, often journaling to make sense of it. She hopes to reconnect with the teammates she left behind in Tehran. “Those are my teammates, you know. They became good friends too… I didn’t really get to say any proper goodbyes,” she said.
