See this story by Margaret Whitehead who has worked selflessly as the Director of Airline Ambassadors Children’s Medical Escort program since we began in 1997. This story gives you the feel of one of the hundreds of cases she worked on this month and how so many come together to light up the lives of children:
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Seventeen year old Ikechukwu (call him Philip) was fifteen when he left his home in Nigeria to come to Boston Shriners for treatment for severe burns. Finally, after two years he was ready to return home to Lagos and we would accompany him on that long trip.
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He wanted to check a large bag that contained all the possessions that he had accumulated during that time. Because of the procedures we must follow in Paris, it is our policy never to check a bag on this route. But knowing how much this meant to this teenager we made an exception and went to work trying to figure out the best way to accomplish it.
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BOS management was asked if they could help and both Derrick Proffitt and Donna Hronek couldn’t have been nicer. That was after we cleared the first hurdle when I explained to them there would be police involvement since he had no French visa. Then our Paris coordinator, Aicha Touahria said she would make sure some of her co-workers would help.
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So everything looked good until I got a call from Rich Henderson, our medical escort who accompanied Philip from BOS to MIA (had to connect in MIA on this trip), who said there were 2 separate AA records for this boy and his bag was checked on the incorrect record, meaning it most likely would never get to Lagos.
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I had no prior knowledge of any of this but quickly checked with the sponsoring agency who had booked his reservation was new and totally confused and had booked two records – the Miles for kids ticket with AA and another one with a travel agent.
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In Miami, our Jacqueline Boyd was waiting for Rich and Philip so she could accompany him to Paris and went immediately over to AA, explained the situation and the agent finally said she had the problem corrected and the bag would be on the CDG (Paris) flight. In CDG Aicha had arranged for a baggage service agent to hand deliver the bag over to Air France, which she did and all our efforts paid off. Philip arrived home a happy young man with all his possessions!
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What an amazing team we had who all worked together to make this teenager’s wishes come true. It’s all about caring enough to go that extra mile and that’s what we do best.
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