Cincinnati Bengals TE Drew Sample, wife Angelina looking to extract family from war-torn Ukraine
Cincinnati Bengals tight end Drew Sample and his wife, Angelina, are trying to extract family members from Ukraine, as Russia's invasion into the country extends into its second week.
Angelina, who goes by Ang, was born in Ukraine. In an appearance on "Fox & Friends," she revealed that she still has her maternal grandparents, an aunt and their families, as well as her paternal grandmother and uncles and their families, stranded in the city of Chernivtsi, which is in the southwestern part of the country.
"We understand there's a lot of people who are in our similar situation," Drew Sample said during the segment. "We've been trying to bring awareness to the fact of just how hard it has been on those people. For us, it's just been hard because there's really no good answers. The Ukrainians are proud people and without any concrete plan of what's going to happen once they leave the country, they really don't want to leave. We're really their only family that's in the United States.
"We've just been trying to see if there's anything we can do to set up a plan where we can get them to us so they feel comfortable leaving, because it's obviously dangerous for them."
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Ang Sample said her paternal grandmother's case is a particular concern, as she lives in a rural town that doesn't have electricity.
"The conditions are pretty miserable for a 76-year-old woman to be hiding in a basement at her age," she said during the segment. "It’s just dangerous for her to even get in and out, but to stay in her house is even more dangerous with air raid sirens going off."
Drew Sample, 25, just finished his third season with the Bengals and caught 11 passes for 81 yards in the 2021 season.
"They're sitting in the dark. No electricity, no lights, no power, they have to turn everything off. In case there's bombings," she said in a separate interview on WCPO 9 Cincinnati. "So they listen on the radio to the news to hear when it's safe to come out,"