UK diplomat relives breakdown in Indian tiger reserve on COVID-19 rescue mission

A UK diplomat has relived “low point” of being stranded with a flat tyre in midst of a tiger reserve in Bengaluru while on a rescue mission during coronavirus lockdown to get British nationals to airport to be repatriated back home to Britain.

Deputy High Commissioner Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford and his team of five were charged with getting a group of 260 elderly and vulnerable passengers to ir destination in time when y broke down in middle of Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

With his team standing lookout, Pilmore-Bedford raced to change tyre under blazing sun and rising humidity of tropical forest, a British High Commission in New Delhi statement said this week.

" breakdown was definitely a low point in our journey,” recalls diplomat.

"But we h so many people counting on us, we couldn’t end up as a tiger’s tiffin. Changing tyres isn’t your aver diplomatic activity, but re was thing we weren’t prepared to do to get our people home,” he said.

tiger reserve is home to second-biggest tiger population in India, with nearly 400 big cats believed to be roaming in area. To d to venture, ro also runs through middle of an elephant migration corridor, and group even encountered a female elephant during ordeal.

Pilmore-Bedford and his team drove 12 hours from Bengaluru to Cochin, while ar team embarked on a 13-hour journey from Chennai to Thiruvananthapuram, to help British nationals board ir charter flight home on April 15. se British residents h been stranded across Kerala and Tamil Nu for four weeks after flight options in sourn India ground to a halt as pandemic escalated and both countries went into lockdown.

After successfully changing tyre, Pilmore-Bedford's team ploughed on to Cochin, arriving just in time to help 260 stranded travellers onto an emergency charter flight.

UK Foreign Office also related experience of a group of 42 students and teachers from an international school, stranded in hills of Ooty, negotiated a tough eight-hour journey across state borders to meet an exhausted staff member, who h driven 36 hours and 2,000-km from Chennai to Kerala to meet group and hand-deliver an emergency travel document to allow m to fly.

Protocol Assistant at Deputy High Commission in Chennai, Rajesh Bhaskaran, who me that journey said: “Though journey was arduous and riddled with multiple police checkpoints, at end it was a hugely satisfying experience to help stranded British nationals from remote parts of sourn India fly back home safely.

“But almost zero traffic during lockdown me me feel like a ‘king of ro’ to deliver emergency travel documents in nick of time.”

UK Foreign Office lauded "extreme efforts" to get British travellers home from Cochin, who went on to support a furr three charter flights to get around 400 British travellers home.

Eight-year-old Brit Mayzia Richardson, from Derby, who was among travellers, summed up jubilation of travellers on ir way home, singing ‘A Million Dreams’ from hit film ‘ Greatest Showman’ at check-in desk of her special charter flight home, Foreign Office said.