The last remake wasn't very good. Time for another try.Posted on 01/24/2008 7:00:01 PM PST by lowbridge
British girls on holiday in New York put in orphanage after mother falls ill
Two British schoolgirls went on a dream trip to New York with their mum - and ended up in a tough inner-city orphanage.
Gemma and Katie Bray flew to the Big Apple with their mother Yvonne, 39, on a post-Christmas shopping trip.
But just 24 hours after touching down at JFK airport their four-day break of sight-seeing and shopping was cut short after Yvonne was rushed to hospital with pneumonia.
Stunned sisters Gemma, 15, and Katie, 13, were suddenly whisked away from their sick mother's bedside and taken to a "hard-as-nails" orphanage.
Yvonne, of Appledore, Devon, said: "We still had the trip of a lifetime - just for all the wrong reasons."
She said she was too ill to wave goodbye to her shell-shocked daughters as they were taken away from her hospital bedside by two New York social workers.
Dehydrated, her arms full of IV drips after being knocked for six by a severe bout of pneumonia, the single mother could only watch as Gemma and Katie left the Queens Medical Centre hospital in Harlem.
"Have you any homicidal tendencies? What street gangs are you in?" were just two of the questions asked by security staff who frisked the girls at an orphanage in downtown Manhattan.
"I'm a member of Appledore library," said Gemma, who attends Bideford College with her sister.
Stripped of their belongings and clothes, the girls were given one-size plain white T-shirts and elasticated jeans - not quite the fashionable gear they had dreamed of picking up in Fifth Avenue's designer shops.
"They looked like prison outfits," said Gemma.
The sisters were spilt up, posed for mug-shots, given a medical examination and a wash pack and told to go and have a shower.
They were told they were not allowed to leave the orphanage and shown to a glass-walled dorm on a floor for 12-15-year-old girls.
"It was like being in a little cage," said Katie.
"It was scary as the staff were constantly looking in at us. I tried to go to sleep, but every time I opened my eyes, someone was looking right at me."
The girls bravely made the best of their plight and happily chatted to other kids at the home.
"They wanted to know all about England and whether we knew the Queen," said Gemma.
"Most of them were at the home because they had been taken away from their families for whatever reason.
"We were lucky to be able to leave after just one night.
"It was scary at first but everyone turned out to be friendly.
"It was a good experience - just not really what we had gone on holiday for."
Meanwhile, mum Yvonne had been told that she would need to stay in hospital for another two or three days.
Bed-ridden in a ward where every other patient seemed to be handcuffed to either their bed or a cop - the man in the next bed had been stabbed in the neck - she was already feeling a long way from sleepy Devon.
"It felt like I was in an episode of ER," she said. "I was frantic with worry. "The social workers from the Manhattan Child Services kept changing shifts so nobody knew what was happening.
They eventually managed to trace the girls for me, but said they wouldn't release them until I was well and back at the hotel.
"Although I had travel insurance, we were due to fly home the next evening so I decided I had to discharge myself to try and get them back."
Days earlier, Yvonne had been stretchered past a long queue of guests checking into the LaGuardia Marriot Hotel, wheeled through the lobby and into a waiting ambulance.
As a 911 emergency, she was sped through the notorious New York traffic in her pyjamas.
"After two nights, I marched out of the hospital through the front doors in the same vomit-stained pyjamas," she said.
"It was so embarrassing. I must have looked like a crazy mad woman as I stood there in the freezing cold, crying, and trying to hail down a cab."
After getting back to the sanctuary of her hotel - and convincing the staff that she was the same bedraggled woman that had been rushed to hospital two days earlier - tearful Yvonne was given a key to her room and got to work telephoning the orphanage for her kids.
"After a number of calls, I eventually got a call from a woman who said that she had the kids and was about half-an-hour from the hotel.
"I was so relieved. We'd only been apart for a matter of days but it seemed like forever.
"The girls had an interesting insight into the life of a 'removed' child in New York City.
"They also had some great fun tales of all the other girls that had met in the orphanage and said they were treated like mini celebrities from England.
"It was quite a relief to know that they hadn't been scarred for life."
Although not over her pneumonia, Yvonne was determined that the family would make the most of their last night in New York.
Just 30 minutes later, she and her daughters were in a cab to Broadway.
"We had already booked our tickets for Mary Poppins, and wanted to treat ourselves after everything that had happened," said Yvonne.
"We saw a fantastic show and then went out and had a lovely meal. We even managed to get a bit of shopping in as the shops stayed open late."
Armed with inhalers and antibiotics, Yvonne and the girls took a dash around Times Square in a cab the next day before boarding their flight back to Gatwick.
Arriving back in Devon was not the end of the story for Yvonne.
Not content with her adventure in New York, she was set to take part in a week-long charity expedition in the sub-zero wilderness of northern Sweden.
Yvonne had raised £1,500 and undergone specialist outdoor training to travel with 11 other north Devon adventurers taking part in the Exeter Leukaemia Fund Arctic Challenge 2008.
"My expedition leader said I needed a letter from my GP to confirm that I was fit enough to go," said Yvonne.
"As I was still on antibiotics, she refused to sign me fit as she said my condition in Arctic surroundings would be life-threatening.
"I was totally devastated, as I had booked to go on the expedition after a school friend of mine died of leukaemia last year.
"I want to thank everyone that has sponsored me and helped me to raise the money and let them know that it is safe and I hope to be going on the expedition in February next year instead."
Good work, New York City, you schmucks.
What a crazy story!
Very.
Big Government strikes again!
The City of New York owes this family an apology.
What “orphanage” are they talking about? Or as we call it here in the U.S. “juvenile detention center.”
what a nightmare!
what about sending the kids home on the next flight?
the british embassey?
hire an adult caretaker to watch the kids?
what went wrong here?
what a nightmare!
what about sending the kids home on the next flight?
the british embassey?
hire an adult caretaker to watch the kids?
what went wrong here?
Oh my goodness! this is so bizarre!!
Hey, this is part of our new hospitality program.
In the good old days we would mug them of all their money and then pointed them in the direction of the airport.
Welcome to New York!
Now Get out.
Back in the good old days New York would take the children of victims of the various plagues that wracked the city and simply put them on trains that went to the Midwest.
I knew a man whose grandfather had been transported to Indiana for that exact reason.
Tens of thousands of kids were simply shipped out.
I'd say New York has gotten better if this story is true.
We don’t have orphanages in the US
But it takes a village!
Not the lifestyle I'm living. But then, I'm not a single mother of two.
Where was the father of these two kids?
They have money enough to juant to New York for shopping, but she could arrange with an airline to fly the two girls home?
Why didn’t she just call the UK embassy?
NYC actually did its job. The mother let down these kids.
The last remake wasn't very good. Time for another try.Poor things!
What a terrible experience!
We have something. Could have been a juvenile detention center.
The Embassy. That would’ve been a great place to start!
What these children were subjected to was horrendous!
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