A group of dozens of UK students have been stranded in the US after their passports were destroyed by the hotel where they were staying on a ski trip. According to the BBC, the documents “were in tatters”. The children returned to the country with a few days’ delay, partly thanks to the efforts of the school authorities.
Forty-two pupils aged 8 to 10 from Barr Beacon School in Walsall, England together with their guardians went to the United States for skiing. The trip organized in February was previously postponed twice due to the pandemic. The group had planned to return to the UK on Saturday 25 February but had to stay in USA four days longer. Reason? The hotel in Lincoln, New Hampshire where the British were staying “apparently destroyed their passports by mistake”, the BBC reported on Tuesday February 28, writing that the documents were “in tatters”.
So far, it has not been established how the hotel destroyed the documents. The guardians improvised a few days’ stay in New York, and the school’s headmistress Katie Hibbs took action to bring students from across the ocean as soon as possible. Thanks to the documents signed by their parents and the help of the British Embassy, the group returned to the country on Wednesday, March 1.
Parent about the efforts of the school
“It was really scary,” the mother of one student told the British broadcaster. As she emphasized, the girl was away from her family for such a long time for the first time. The parent, who remained anonymous, also appreciated the efforts of the school authorities: – The way in which the headmistress solved problems remotely was fantastic.
The Express & Star portal noted that it is impossible to leave the US without a passport and that the British embassy charges £150 for a single emergency travel document.
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