Child unwell on school trip

[G172125]

My son is currently on a school trip to Disneyland. He started to feel unwell with stomach pains and vomiting. He got split up from he’s group and was left alone in Disney village. I managed to get hold of the teacher to let her know and she said she would go to him. My son then text me and said she said she Can’t go to him because she is queuing for a ride. Nobody bothered to go look for my son for two hours. Aibu to make a complaint about this and take it further?

In general Mumsnet used to make me feel better about the world. You might get ‘educated’ on something which might sting but overall wasn’t a bad thing (thank you FWR boards!) or see women supported through abusive relationships or pregnancy issues and grief. There was always snark and contrary responses but the good outweighed the bad.

There were always people coming along like this too and lamenting the loss of the good old days. While I’m not sure about the general idea of ‘good old days’ and understand change is inevitable and not necessarily bad, the thing that’s finally making me wonder if the scales have tipped for me is the onslaught of breathtaking callousness and sometimes, honestly, plain thickness. And this is coming from someone who generally doesn’t think well of the “be kind“ movement when aimed at women. I don’t know if it’s a new generation or a different demographic or societal malaise but it’s pretty dispiriting.

@Usernamechange1234

What on earth is going on on in this thread. I teach so am ‘team teacher’ most of the time but you don’t leave a child (even if they’re 16) to make their own way back to a hotel. You have no idea how ill they could potentially be. You have a duty of care

I'm also baffled by the responses. I remember a story about a school trip to New York where a child was complaining that he felt exhausted and unwell & was just left alone at hotel while rest of staff went sightseeing. He ended up dying of I think sepsis. He was also phoning home & it must have been traumatic for everyone involved. I've always been cautious with students but this story was shocking as I imagine everyone thought the teenager was being OTT.

I'm surprised by MN saying teacher was fine to carry on going on rides & leave him to it. Usually they can't do anything right 🤷🏻‍♀️

@converseandjeans

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-57065283.amp

Very very sad for all involved.

@OnceUponARainbow88

Yes that is the one. It's awful to read about it. She was similar age to OPs son & I don't think the adults on this thread understand how a school trip works. Students can't just go back to their room alone like some seem to be suggesting. They are still classed as minors & have to do what they're told.

Thought story was about a boy in New York.

@G172125 Is he ok?

I hope you get this resolved OP. As others have said make sure you get the full story. But if it's as your son described then the teacher/s deserve to be reprimanded. I'm a teacher, been on loads of school trips. They are bloody exhausting both in terms of organising them and being present on one. Most teachers deserve a medal for even contemplating putting one on. That said there is a small minority of lazy teachers who are bloody annoying to take on trips and see it as a jolly. They tend not to be invited again and never to go the trouble of organising their own trip.

OP for future reference, teach your child to use Uber. He would have been able to easily Uber back to his hotel from DLP and gone to bed in his own room.

Or, for future reference, theme parks often have medical centers he could have gone to hang out at, maybe they could have given him some anti diarrhea tablets.

As an aside, as it's the Easter holidays the teacher could legitimately have been queueing for over 90 mins for a ride and been 5 mins from the loading bay when they got the call, and honestly I wouldn't blame them for going on the ride rather than rushing to a 16 year old (which could have legitimately been there without adults) who was simply having a bit of D&V.

I get as his parent you're hard wired to worry, I clearly would too as a parent, but realistically what was the teacher meant to do for him?

Uber don’t let under 18 year olds have an account, nor are you supposed to order a ride for someone under 18 in France. Leaving DLP on his own would almost certainly have been against the trip rules. If he had left he would still have been on his own and had it not simply been D&V he would have had an even harder time accessing help if he needed it.

One of his friends should have stayed with him, but since they didn’t and it was a school trip with adults who were there to be in loco parentis one of them should have gone to find him straight away, assess if he needed more medical attention or to go back to the hotel and either stayed with him, or arranged for a friend to stay with him and call if he deteriorated depending on how serious it seemed, what he preferred and where he was going to be (and the willingness of friends).