It’s scary enough to be robbed, become ill or get arrested while traveling in the United States, but for the 45 million Americans who travel abroad each year, similar emergencies can trigger a daunting array of problems.
Although trip insurance can offer some protection, travelers can also contact United States embassies and consulates throughout the world for a variety of emergency, and a few nonemergency, services.
Budgetary pressures and shifting American interests have resulted in the closing of about a dozen embassies and consulates during the last year, according to Albert Fairchild, a State Department spokesman. No more closings are expected in the next year, he said. The offices now include 244 embassies and consulates, and 45 part-time consular agencies available to help travelers.
Earlier this year, David Schensted, chief of the Consular Section at the United States Embassy in Katmandu, was contacted by a trekking company that had had a middle-age American man die of a heart attack on one of its trips.
“The company brought us the body, which we stored at the embassy in our two-body morgue,”Schensted says.
“We notified the family and explained that their options were either a traditional Nepalese cremation or shipping the body back to the U.S. They chose cremation and asked us to arrange for both a Catholic priest and a Buddhist lama to preside over the ceremony.
“The day of the cremation, we carried the body ourselves, placed it in an embassy van and drove down to the river banks. At the river we were surrounded by temples and by Nepalese families cremating their loved ones at the same time. We supervised the lighting of the fire, and stayed until the body was consumed. Then we collected the ashes and shipped them to the family in the States. It was nothing anyone prepared us to do in diplomat school.”
If you have a personal dispute, you’re on your own. An American who called a United States consulate in Canada in the middle of the night didn’t get very far when he told the duty officer that he’d been ejected from a bar and wanted someone to call the bar to demand that he be allowed back in.
Other consulates have rebuffed requests to intervene in a disagreement at a brothel and appeals from bickering spouses for marriage counseling.
In addition, don’t expect embassies or consulates to search for your lost baggage, perform a marriage ceremony or act as your travel agent, interpreter, post office, bank, employment agency or lawyer. Although they can often suggest where to find these services, their primary responsibility is to provide help in emergency situations.
If you have an emergency while traveling abroad, contact the American Citizens Services, a State Department agency that has an office in every United States Embassy, consulate and part-time consular agency throughout the world. According to Nyda Budig, a State Department public affairs officer, it is always possible for travelers facing a serious emergency to make personal contact with an individual who can help.
To find the nearest embassy or consulate, carry a copy of the appropriate country’s Consular Information Sheet when you travel. In addition to listing pertinent addresses and phone numbers, these sheets include details about various safety issues and assess the reliability of each country’s medical facilities. Sheets are available on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov or by fax (you must call from the telephone on your fax): 202-647-3000. You can also listen to the information as recorded messages at 202-647-5225, although this can be a tedious and expensive long-distance option.
The efficiency with which emergency assistance is available, Budig says, depends on the volume of requests, the size of the consular office, the access to local resources and whether the request is made during regular business hours. Many of the following services are free.
Passport replacement: If your passport is lost or stolen, American Citizens Services can generally replace it within 24 hours. To speed up the process, carry a photocopy of your passport’s identification page and extra passport photos. Delays can occur if you have no way of immediately proving your identity, or when local photography studios are closed.
Financial assistance: Each year the ACS helps transfer more than $3 million in private funds and provides more than $500,000 in emergency government loans to Americans abroad who are in desperate financial situations.
Medical assistance: All ACS offices will provide lists of doctors, dentists and mental health specialists, as well as hospitals and clinics.
Serious illness or injury: If you are injured or become seriously ill when traveling alone, or if you and your traveling companion are both injured or ill, the ACS will inform your family and friends about your condition. In some cases, it will also collect information about your medical history, forwarding it to your local doctor or hospital, and assist in making arrangements to return you to the United States, at your expense, on a commercial flight.
Death: Each year more than 6,000 Americans die abroad. The ACS will notify the next of kin, explain various options and costs for burial or return of the remains, and prepare a Report of Death. All costs, however, must be paid by the family.
In addition, if the deceased has no legal representative in the country, the ACS will take possession of all personal property, prepare an inventory and follow the next of kin’s instructions concerning disposition.
Disaster or evacuation: When there is a natural disaster or civil unrest abroad, ACS provides a wide array of services, from informing concerned family members back home about your status, if it is known, to help with evacuation.
Arrest: If you become one of the more than 2,500 Americans arrested abroad each year, it is important to contact the ACS immediately. Although it cannot have you released (you are subject to local laws), it will provide a list of local lawyers you may contact. A consular officer will also visit you regularly in jail, inform you generally about the relevant laws, contact your family, and help transmit required funds. When necessary, it also can protest mistreatment, monitor your condition and provide dietary supplements.
Emergency or concern at home: If there is an emergency at home, or your relatives are concerned about your welfare or whereabouts, the ACS can contact the State Department’s Overseas Citizens Office, 202-647-5225, which is staffed 24 hours a day.
After obtaining the pertinent information, consular officers will contact the embassy in the appropriate country and make an effort to find you. Although the office receives more than 200,000 calls a year, many of them are triggered by travelers who merely forgot to call home as promised.
Nonemergency services: If you want to register a birth abroad, need documents notarized or would like to register your arrival and local address (recommended in countries experiencing civil unrest), you can do so during regular business hours at all United States embassies and consulates. Some of these services require a fee and may not be available at part-time consular agencies.
