Why Backpack Kids?
My friend Jean sends her teenage daughter, Mary Ellen, to Spain with a friend every year. The girls stay with the friend’s stepdad. After Natalie Holloway’s disappearance, the Mumbai bombings, the Indonesian Tsunami, and Amanda Knox’s conviction, I asked Jean what precautions she took when planning the trip. Passport, digital camera, and American dollars topped the list of items to pack. What about medical evacuation insurance (“medevac” insurance), an emergency contact list, and registration at a U.S. Embassy? She looked at me puzzled. Why, when there’s never been a problem?
Because there could be a problem as I learned all too well myself. I had lived all over the world and traveled extensively with my family. We considered ourselves international road warriors, and frequently sent our teenage son back and forth across the Atlantic by himself without incident.
That all changed in 2007, when I got the call that every parent dreads. My son, Jeremy, phoned from a remote hospital in South Korea to say he’d been in a car accident and broke a vertebra in his back. My heart sank. He had taken an English teaching job in South Korea, and 3 days before his departure, had planned a last-minute sightseeing trip with his fellow teachers. No one else in the car was seriously injured and alcohol was not involved. It was just a bad accident on a windy unfamiliar road in a very foreign environment.
This situation is a classic one. That’s why the U.S. Department of State says statistically you are more likely to be in a traffic accident than be hurt by a terrorist attack overseas. The World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Road Safety (based on a survey of 178 countries) backs this up. According to the 2009 study, about 1.3 million people die each year on the world's roads, and between 20 million and 50 million suffer injuries. About half of those killed are pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
Most parents, teachers and volunteer leaders are unaware of what happens when an injured person becomes unable to continue with his travel plans.
I had no excuse. Even though my government job at that time included informing the public about basic international travel information, I had not followed my own advice, and Jeremy did not have trip insurance or medical evacuation (medevac) insurance.
I quickly learned that Jeremy’s recovery period would be several weeks. This meant he would lose money on his cancelled return flight home; he would lose wages because he could not work; and he would incur high medical bills during his extended treatment time. I offered to go to him in South Korea, and would have gladly incurred the additional airfare and hotel costs, but he refused, saying he had colleagues nearby and that he would be home in no time.
Another important fact was that he could not tolerate a plane flight sitting upright, and it was unknown when his back would be healed enough for the 13-hour flight. To fly him home in that situation, he would have had to be on a gurney lying down, and that means we would have needed to purchase an entire row of seats on a commercial carrier in order to fit the gurney onto the flight. Also, because he’d be unable to maneuver himself, we would have to pay for a medical escort who would need to be a bilingual South Korean nurse who would require a round-trip ticket, of course. The estimated cost for that entire travel scenario would have been between $50,000 and $100,000 dollars. It’s not like in the movies when the military swoops down and saves the injured U.S. tourist.
If we had purchased medevac insurance, most of these costs would have been covered. That’s what we learned the hard way.
Given those circumstances, it was best to wait it out, and let him heal in the hospital in Korea. One lucky moment in all of this difficulty was that the driver had chosen to take out renter’s insurance. Not only were Jeremy’s hospital bills paid, but also his lost wages, as well as some compensation for pain and suffering. While this relieved us financially, it did not help emotionally.
I still felt like the worst mother in the world, not being with my son who was lying in pain more than 6,000 miles away in a foreign hospital. I needed an English-speaking liaison to help. That’s where the U.S. Embassy came in.
After a bumpy start contacting the embassy, a very helpful consular officer returned my call. He directed us to resources for translation of the medical records, so I could get a second opinion of the treatment plan back here with U.S. doctors. He also called Jeremy regularly to let him know he was not forgotten.
The estimated healing time took longer than the doctors expected. The original 4-week estimate turned into 6, and then 8 weeks. I think this was the most difficult time for Jeremy, believing he would soon be strong enough to sit upright for a plane flight, only to have his hopes dashed weekly.
He eventually did make it back to the United States, but even then he was still in so much pain, it made a new job hunt impossible. The whole episode had caused a painful 3-month delay in his life plan.
That’s why I wrote Backpack Kids; to convince others to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, even if you’ve never had a problem travelling internationally before.
While researching Backpack Kids, I interviewed several teachers and learned that many who organize trips have not traveled internationally themselves. Often the only guidance they received came from a previous teacher in a tattered file with vague tips about how to obtain passports, but little emphasis on safety or emergency planning. The irony is that most school boards require approval of international class trips, but the onus for planning and implementation still falls on the shoulders of the individual teacher. That’s why Backpack Kids is peppered with “Planner Tips” culled from teachers and leaders who were in the same boat.
Many school boards, like ours in the City of Falls Church, Virginia, do require students to purchase medevac and trip insurance, but this practice is not mandated nationally. That’s why Backpack Kids is crammed with online resources to help those leading trips for the first time.
Furthermore, there are many student travel programs that are not school sponsored or supported. Travel companies regularly solicit teachers to lead trips. These teachers are, in essence, being paid by the travel company to sign up students for group trips. For example, the companies will pay the teacher’s fare in exchange for organizing a minimum group size of 12 students. These trips operate outside of school board rules and regulations. But how would a parent know this?
With the increase in student travel and headlines about Natalie Holloway’s disappearance during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, I wanted to reach out not only to parents and their teachers, but also to the increasing numbers of volunteer leaders who organize church and community groups on international aid projects.
It has become a popular choice for families to choose a meaningful vacation and join their religious organization helping with some community service project in remote corners of the world. I knew one family of four who planned to take such a trip to Mexico last year for their summer vacation. When I asked the mom if she had purchased medevac insurance, she said “No, I think the group leader is handling all that and I’m sure we are covered in case of emergency.” Probably not, though.
That’s a common problem. Group travelers think the leaders or hired guides will assist in case of emergency, but the truth is, they can’t really do too much in an emergency when they are responsible for the whole group. This is the reason why a cruise ship will sail without you if you are injured seriously during a shore visit. They will alert your embassy representative in that country and make sure the embassy is aware of your presence in a hospital, but you are ultimately personally responsible for your own safety and, if you can’t be there as a parent, you’ll want to know all that you can do to help your child.
That is my message to all readers: do not think your cruise line, airline, university, employer, religious organization or embassy is going to save you or your child. You must take responsibility for your child’s safety when traveling internationally.
Backpack Kids contains essential questions and answers I have gathered from my independent research. I want to make sure my friend Jean gets this message and I’m happy to share it with you too!
Kate Goggin, Creator of Backpack Kids