BURBANK, California (CNN) - Laura Ling on Wednesday expressed the shock she and Euna Lee felt when former President Clinton showed up in Pyongyang, North Korea, to help secure the two journalists' release.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/05/art.family.afp.gi.jpg caption="Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling go to hug their families Wednesday after arriving in California from North Korea."]
"We feared at any moment that we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told we were going to a meeting," a tearful and emotional Ling said at a news conference in California shortly after arriving by plane with Lee and Clinton.
She spoke minutes after the two women were reunited with their families at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank outside Los Angeles. They had been detained in North Korea since March.
North Korea pardoned Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, after Clinton's brief trip Tuesday to Pyongyang.
"We were taken to a location, and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton," Ling said with Lee standing beside her.
"We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end."
She expressed her and Lee's "deepest gratitude" to Clinton and his "wonderful, amazing" team.