School secretary’s life in ruins after exchange visit disaster

Heather Heeles nearly died and will never have full use of her left arm after a crash involving the bus carrying staff from two York schools who were making the visit funded by the British Council.

The 47-year-old mother of two was left holding the near-severed limb for two hours because a doctor at a nearby health clinic was unable to help other than wrapping the wound in cardboard.

Mrs Heeles worked at St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Askham Richard, York, for nine years but has had to take early retirement. She said her life has been ruined and her children – Charlotte, 15 and Benjamin, 11 – now have to help to care for her.

She claims York Council’s guidance ahead of the trip was nothing more than advising them to take sun cream because of the heat, and not to drink tap water.

Mrs Heeles said the authority failed to undertake risk assessments, did not provide any emergency contacts should an accident occur and have deserted her since she returned to the UK last year.

The exchange group, made up of staff from St Mary’s and Westfield Primary, in Acomb, York, was also carrying £2,000 in cash for the school being visited, contrary to advice the British Council says it issues to exchange visit groups.

Mrs Heeles said she did not even know who provided the money, but she and colleagues had sat in a corner of Leeds Bradford Airport dividing it up into envelopes so no single person had to take the security risk of carrying it all.

The British Council said it makes all donations by electronic transfer and would never ask a group to carry cash.

Mrs Heeles, of Copmanthorpe near York, said she has received no apology from York Council, and the only contact since the incident in February last year was on Friday when it wrote to her demanding half her severance package – £1,539 – was returned owing to an overpayment.

“My life has been completely ruined by this,” she said. “I will be disabled for the rest of my life.

Mrs Heeles’s husband Jonathan, a train driver, organised her return to the UK, without any assistance from the school and the council, and had to sign an agreement that he would cover the £46,000 costs should there be a problem with insurance.

The trip was to visit St Paul’s school in Begoro, about 100 miles north of Ghana’s capital Accra. Previous exchange visits have been made and both Yorkshire schools have forged links with schools in the area.

After flying into Accra, Mrs Heeles’s group were shown to a ramshackle minibus, designed to seat fewer adults than were travelling and with no back door.

Foreign Office guidance is that visitors to Ghana should not travel after dark but they were told there was no funding for a hotel so they would travel overnight to their destination.

After two breakdowns, the bus crashed into another vehicle and an object flew through the window Mrs Heeles was leaning against as she slept. The smashed glass cut her arm to the bone and by the time they arrived at a hospital, surgeons recommended amputation but Mrs Heeles refused.

She was stabilised and flown home and has since undergone 23 operations. Her problems worsened when she suffered side effects to antibiotics and now has severely impaired balance and uses a wheelchair. The council’s travel insurance has paid for a £15,000 adapted car so she can continue to drive.

Pete Dwyer, director of education at York Council, said: “This was clearly a dreadful incident which has had an understandably traumatic impact upon Mrs Heeles’s life. The accident and the circumstances around it remain under investigation and as a result it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Mrs Heeles said she did not know what happened to the money being carried on the bus. She said she was simply told it was funding for the school.