Coronavirus: Packers’ Rodgers beats the clock to flee Peru as COVID-19 threat was breaking out

With the airport in Peru minutes from being closed, Green Bay Packers star Aaron Rodgers and his group barely made it home in a scene the former California Golden Bears quarterback said was right out of the movie "Argo"

Aaron Rodgers found himself in the middle of another dramatic drive with the clock ticking down recently, but this time the Green Bay Packers quarterback and his travel party were trying to flee Peru and the growing threat of the coronavirus before the airport shut down.

“Have you seen the movie ‘Argo’? You have? The scene at the end where they’re racing to the airport,” Rodgers said this week. “Nobody was chasing us, thankfully, or holding us. We didn’t have to speak Farsi to get back into the country, but there was some moments where we worried we were not going to get out.

“It was absolute pandemonium at the airport.”

The former Cal star detailed his ordeal in a radio interview on Friday with former teammate Packers A.J. Hawk and former Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee.

Rodgers begins talking about his ordeal at the about 7 minutes into the interview.

Rodgers said his group woke up early on March 18 to board their private plane and leave the South American country because of the increasing COVID-19 threat.

The threat combined with inclement weather came within minutes of blocking their path home.

“When we rolled up to the airport at like 7 in the morning, it was wall-to-wall people and you couldn’t move,” Rodgers said on the broadcast. “I was thinking, ‘This isn’t very safe.’ Not many masks on, and there was definitely a panic in the air. But somehow (we) made it down and then they shut the airport down because it was really bad weather.

“They had a drop-dead time where they were going to shut the entire airport down. We made it by about 15 minutes.”

Rodgers said he wasn’t sure if he would have made it back to the United States if the group had been flying commercially.

“Probably not,” he said.

Rodgers said he has remained healthy and that none of the four travelers in his group have experienced any virus symptoms. He added they had been visiting a remote section of southeast Peru that had not experienced a coronavirus outbreak.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he said.

Since returning to the United States, Rodgers has been at home in Malibu with his girlfriend Danica Patrick, a former racecar driver. He said he has ventured out on a few occasions for supplies amid California’s stay-at-home order.

On Thursday, Rodgers found toilet paper available at the store for the first time.

“I bought a six-pack and that was a good day,” he said.

Field Level Media contributed to this report.