It was summer 2008, and I was in the midst of a second crazy summer with Study Tours. But, I had finally earned a day off, it was actually more like two days off, which was unheard of. We had sent almost the entire staff, group leaders, and students to Washington DC for the weekend. I worked incredibly hard to get the staff and the buses ready to depart. At 2:30 p.m. on Saturday I was free!... At least until about 9 o'clock the next night.
The forgotten item
After watching the buses depart, I walked back in the office with my boss and we saw one of the video cameras. It was the staff's job to video the students out on excursions. This responsibility rotated amongst the staff members. So we got on our direct connect phones and started asking if anyone had the video camera. Each bus was numbered, and the staff knew they were in trouble.
"I need to know if anyone has the video camera. Bus 1?" my boss asked. We waited with bated breath.
"No," came the response.
"Bus 2?"
"No," more exasperation.
"Bus 3?"
"No."
This went on, with the staff's hearts sinking more and more with each "no" response. Then, bus 6, "Yes there's a camera here."
Relief.
"Wait, what are you asking?" came the response back from bus 6. "I see that there is a camera on the bus."
"Do you have the video camera for the trip?"
"Oh... no. I thought you meant the bus camera for recording potential incidents."
"Okay, we're going to try this again, we are asking if anyone has the video camera to record the students on the trip for the weekend. Bus 1?"
Each bus number was called out again until finally, bus 9, gave a solemn "No." With that my boss said, "You better take 1,000 photos on this trip this weekend!!" He was less than thrilled.
The trip rolled on
Saturday night in the Baltimore Inner Harbor was uneventful. I heard from the staff that everything went fine during check in at the Downtown DC hotel. Sunday however, proved to be a different story.
On Sunday, the buses loaded up at 9 a.m. and dropped the students at the Capital Building. They would be walking the National Mall from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial. It was usually a long, hot day in DC during July and the students never seemed to walk quickly enough. They would stop and have lunch at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum before continuing their trek. When the groups met after lunch to continue their walk it was discovered that two students were missing.
This type of thing was not unheard of. Often, students lost track of time and would show up 5-10 minutes late. The group waited, and waited, and waited. Many of the 300+ students and staff decided to continue on while the group leaders of the missing students stayed with a few of the staff to try and sort this out.
We have photo evidence
After waiting for a bit, they decided they needed to "sound the alarm" that there were two missing students somewhere in Washington DC. My boss was alerted to the situation as well as park rangers, the hotel they had stayed at the night before, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, local police, and even Homeland Security. The police asked where the students were last seen, where they could have been, and if the group had any photos of them. Eureka!! Because the video cameras were left in New Jersey, the staff did in fact have photos of the missing students. Then an all points bulletin was put out to the city of DC for these missing students. Hours went by, and all anyone could do was wait, and walk, as many continued their tour.
When these types of things happen all you can do is trust that the staff knows to use their best judgement to resolve the situation as calmly and as quickly as possible. Being that my boss and I were sitting in Lawrenceville, NJ we knew there was nothing that we could do.
Jeff, along with a few other staff members were canvasing the National Mall for the two students. Our students typically stuck out like sore thumbs while on tour in American. They just had this look about them that said, "I'm not from here." Probably the same way we would look in a foreign country where we barely spoke the language.
Running out of time
The meeting time was 3 p.m. at the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that the students would get on a bus to view the White House before heading home. Jeff was running out of time. It wouldn't be long before he would have to load the buses to go to the White House and then back to New Jersey. They loaded the buses and went to the White House.
Then, Jeff's phone rang. It was the hotel. The two missing students were at the hotel's front desk inquiring about the lost wallet. The police were alerted and the students were delivered to the location of the buses. One staff member recalls the students "showing up on the corner as we were in the bus getting ready to pull away." As the students strolled up, their group leaders have them an earful in their native tongue.
As it turned out, one of the students had left his wallet at the hotel. They both left the group at the Air and Space Museum, walked to the hotel to retrieve the wallet. The walk took them all day, but the wallet was retrieved. The missing students were none the wiser to the massive search that was going on around them and the anxiety that they had caused to their group leaders and Study Tours staff, or the involvement of local law enforcement and national security.
Keep calm and carry on... Study Tours style
As stressful as the situation was for everyone, Jeff remained calm and collected at every point. He made the right decisions on how to handle the situation and was fortunate that everything had worked out for the best.
Jeff, back at work the next day in NYC (2008)
Jeff did not get the next two days off, but rather was back at it the next day in New York City with the group. It was these kinds of stories that we look back on and think, "Did that really happen?" In fact it did, and year after year I would start the summer thinking, "I've seen it all, there is no way that I will be surprised by something this year." Every year, I was humbled, and every year I learned something new.
After everyone returned to campus, it was tough to be mad that the video camera had been left at the school the day before. Forgetting the video camera was just what was needed to locate the students. The photos of the students were essential to finding them.
Incidents of this magnitude were not an everyday occurrence, but something out of the ordinary did happen most days. It certainly made for an interesting job and prepared me for just about anything related to planning events.
Now we think fondly of this story, "remember that time homeland security was looking for two of our international students in Washington DC."
This is not the end of the Study Tours stories by any means. There are tons of these out there, and I'm excited to be able to continue to share as many of them as I can. If anyone else has an incident that starts off, "one time during Study Tours..." I'd love to hear it!