Emergency Travel
Just this last week a friend of mine was in desperate need of
getting to Germany right away. Her daughter was in distress in a
mental health facility in that country after a traumatic time.
Without going into details to protect the family, the young
woman did not speak German and was being given ever increasing
doses of sedatives in order to keep her calm. She was not
responsive to her sister who happened to be there. After many
phone calls seeking out advice, it was determined that she
should be brought home. Several problems were to be tackled in
this endeavor.
All the patient's possessions were stolen, including her passport
and her plane ticket. Another ticket was available to her but
this will strand her sister. Her sister was also not in the
position to deal with helping her sick sibling in her journey
home. My friend, after much discussion and debate concluded that
she had to go to Germany to rescue her daughter. We called
several agencies including the Red Cross and Travelers Aid.
Next was a call to our Congressman's office. The assistant there did
refer us to the passport office in Washington D.C. but they were
insisting that my friend would have to fly to D.C. to visit that
office for an emergency passport.
Having to leave from a western U.S. city (Phoenix) there was no
direct connection for my friend to D.C. and on to Stuttgart. After
haggling with a couple of airlines trying to obtain an
emergency fare for my friend, and being mostly unsuccessful, we
booked her to New York and on to Germany after a six-hour layover
to take care of the passport. We were very lucky to get an
appointment in the New York passport office and she was set to
go.
The point of this letter is that, to the best of my knowledge
there was no one place to find the information that we needed to
get my friend on her way. It took more than 24 hours of phone
calls, including to the American consulate in Frankfurt, and
most of those calls were not returned. By the time we were able
to get the plans laid in, it was well past 9 p.m. Friday and many
offices were closed. I can't believe how lucky we were in doing
what we did.
One thing I do know from this experience is that you get nowhere
fast when you wait for red tape twisters to answer your
questions, especially when they insist that they will call you
back.
John
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