Stranded vacationer describes harrowing journey home
A Niagara man left stranded in Cuba after an airport was unexpectedly shut down said the initial excitement of a few extra days of vacation quickly turned sour when his family embarked on a gruelling 18-hour journey home.
Chris Bell, of Niagara Falls, was among the hundreds of Canadians who found themselves stuck in Cayo Largo, a small resort island off Cuba’s southern coast.
The Bell family was scheduled to fly home from Cuba Feb. 16.
“We go to leave, we bring our luggage downstairs to the lobby, and someone tells us they had heard no one’s leaving for the airport,” he said.
It turns out the flight had been cancelled after an airplane had damaged the runway. “Day two, we wake up and do the same thing and we get the same message.”
Initially, Bell, his wife and son, as well as his son’s friend and his father, were excited by the prospect of a spending a few more days in the sun.
“It quickly started to lose its appeal because we really couldn’t do anything. We were all just waiting around.”
Guests were becoming restless, he said, and many feared they would run out of medication.
On the third day, the travellers were taken to the airport where they had their luggage screened before boarding a bus.
While waiting for the bus, Bell heard a commotion and discovered a man had collapsed.
“My wife is a nurse and assisted the guy doing CPR,” he recalled. “Two other people, who were also nurses, helped out too.”
He said people were yelling for staff to bring a defibrillator but was told none was available.
Global Affairs Canada has confirmed the man died. His identity and cause of death have not been released.
Bell had heard the man had run out of heart medication.
“After that, they load us on a bus, I’m in shock thinking ‘I can’t believe what just happened.’”
The bus took the group to a dock where they boarded a ferry bound for the mainland.
“Once we were on the boat, my wife says ‘step on that bug,’ and it just zipped across the floor.”
The family then realized in horror that there were cockroaches everywhere.
“It was brutal, you couldn’t look at a spot and not see a cockroach,” Bell said.
He said the roach-infested ferry experienced some mechanical issues during the voyage so what should have been a fourhour ride took six-and-a-half hours.
From there, the family boarded another bus and made the one-and-a-half hour drive to the airport in Havana where they boarded a flight to Toronto.
“It was exhausting,” Bell said. “From the front of the resort to my door, it was probably around 18 hours.”
Bell feels Air Transat could have dealt with their customers a little bit better.
“Every day we were getting a letter from them, saying the delay was ‘a situation that is out of our control.’”
“We’ve seen a man die, we’ve had the cockroach experience. We get off the plane in Toronto and there is an Air Transat rep handing out papers that said the exact same thing.”
“I probably won’t fly Air Transat again.”
Meanwhile, the embassy of Canada to Cuba reported the airport reopened Feb. 24.
“It was brutal, you couldn’t look at a spot and not see a cockroach.” CHRIS BELL AMONG CANADIANS STRANDED IN CUBA LAST WEEK