Kevin Bell Repatriation charity founders feel it's their 'job to ease the burden on families'

It’s a sense of community that is at the core of what drives the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust to help those through the grief and bureaucracy, Colin Sheridan writes

Colin and Eithne Bell, founders of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, were presented with a sculpture by Tánaiste Micheál Martin for their work.

On June 13, 2013, Colin Bell received the phone call every parent dreads.

His son Kevin, who had been living in New York for 10months, had just been killed in a tragic accident after being hit by two cars. It was a Saturday night.

Any child dying is traumatic for parents, but doing so over 5,000km from home only adds layers of anxiety to an already incredibly fraught situation.

The next 72 hours for Colin and his family passed in a haze, but concluded with young Kevin’s body being brought back to Newry, Down, on the Wednesday.

By any standard, the speed of his repatriation was remarkable. When his son finally arrived home, Colin described the calmness that accompanied him.

He would come to understand that the relief of having his son at home was a luxury amidst the profound grief, and one that was down to the remarkable mobilisation of community.

“Kevin was killed at 2.45am on a Sunday. His postmortem took place on a Sunday afternoon. He was a member of Armagh GAA club in New York. Those boys picked up my wife’s cousin Nessa and drove her all around the city, taking her everywhere she needed to go to speak to whomever needed to be spoken to about Kevin’s body.

“She did an incredible job, demanding to see the right people and not leaving until she got answers. Because of everything they did, Kevin’s body was released to the undertakers in New York on the Monday. [He was] on a plane home to us by the Tuesday night.

The moment Kevin was carried into our house, he brought with him a calmness. He was home. He was safe

While Colin readily admits the efforts of Kevin’s community of friends and family in New York were vital to his speedy repatriation, what unfolded around Newry in the hours after his son’s death blew him away.

“Whenever news broke of Kevin’s death, the community reacted in a way I could never have imagined. In the space of a week, there was something in the region of £150,000 raised by people all across Newry and South Armagh — just to bring Kevin home.

“Of course, it didn’t take anything near that. We had this money which wasn’t ours, and we needed to decide what to do with it.”

It didn’t take long.

About a week after they buried their son, Colin and his wife Eithne heard of a young man from Carryduff who was tragically killed in Thailand.

The Bells called his parents and offered to pay for their son’s repatriation.

A week later, another tragic death of a young Sligo man saw them do the same for his family — using the funds raised for Kevin to fly another body home from the US.

Week on week, the Bells heard stories of families who, like them, were suffering the sudden loss of a loved one overseas and faced the intimidating prospect of organising the return of a body as they tried to process their grief.

Colin made phone call after phone call, explaining to these strangers that they understood their pain and they were willing to help with the financial burden.

It took a year for the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust to become a registered charity in Northern Ireland. Throughout that time, the Bells continued to assist families.

Sadly, tragedy was to visit their door for a second time. Eithne’s nephew Paul was killed in San Francisco, in another hit-and-run, only eight months after Kevin’s death.

It prompted Colin to retire from his job as a PE teacher and devote his time fully to the foundation

After gaining recognition as a charity in the South, the Department of Foreign Affairs saw to it that every embassy across the world had the number of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust.

In its 10 years of existence as a charity, the numbers have been staggering.

The trust has now repatriated 1,860 loved ones to their families in Ireland from the likes of Australia, Argentina, South Korea, Canada, Ecuador, Cambodia, India, and Uganda.

The current rate of repatriation stands at approximately 25-30 loved ones back to Ireland per month.

“It’s crazy to think,” Colin said, “that after 1,800 repatriations, none of them were as straightforward as our Kevin’s. There just so much to consider. We see it as our job to ease the burden on families so suddenly hit by grief.”

Kevin Bell died in an accident in New York. The community rallied around his parents to help repatriate his remains to Newry, Down.

While the support the Bells offered in those early days was purely financial, the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust now does so much more in terms of easing the burden of bureaucracy.

Stephanie [not her real name] lost her father suddenly while on holiday in Spain.

“You go into such shock, it’s difficult to think straight,” she said. “We were so consumed by what had just happened, it was impossible to think of what to do next. I wasn’t aware of the foundation. A friend called to sympathise, and told me to get in touch. Even then, I couldn’t imagine the charity could do so much, so quickly.”

“Given our experience in so many different countries over the last 10 years, we have established a comprehensive list of preferred undertakers pretty much everywhere,” Colin said.

This means that, no matter the circumstances of death, regardless of jurisdiction, the charity can negotiate on the families behalf and guide them through the process.

“Everything they did,” Stephanie said, “from the sensitivity they showed handling the very first phone call, to telling us where there was an internet cafe close to our hotel to print out the necessary forms, it was all such a relief. What rarely gets mentioned, too, is their professionalism.

“You are so overwhelmed in those early days after a loss. We would’ve been absolutely lost without Colin and his team. After the first phone call, we didn’t worry about any of it. You cannot put a price on that peace of mind.”

With such a turnover of families to help, the Bells long exhausted the initial £150,000 that was raised by their local community to assist them with bringing Kevin home.

The charity has evolved so much that those that the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has helped often fundraise and give back, meaning other families can benefit the same way they did

“One of the earliest families we helped raised so much money after, it was part of our thinking in establishing the foundation,” Colin said, though there is no expectation for anybody that avails of support to give back in any way.

“We receive no State funding. This is a family run charity with one full-time employee. The fundraising is so important, and people do incredible work.”

Without exception, everybody I spoke to who received help from the charity was moved by the unconditionality of the support. Money was never mentioned, nor was “giving back”.

From the first phone call to last, the only priority was returning the body of a loved one in the most empathetic, expedited way possible.

The charity says repatriations can cost up to £20,000 depending on the circumstances of the death, local charges, and hospital release fees. Liaising with local authorities is vital, not to mention a healthy relationship with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Last month, Eithne and Colin Bell were hosted by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin at a reception in Iveagh House.

Mr Martin presented the Bells with a sculpture from artist Kevin Casey, titled ‘Homecoming’, which symbolises the hand of friendship provided by their charity to families across the island in their time of need.

“The solace and support the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust provides to bereaved families during the repatriation cannot be overstated,” Mr Martin said.

For Colin Bell, the core to everything the charity does is simple: Community.

I genuinely believe this only works because we are Irish

“The model has been tried in so many other countries, but has failed because that sense of community doesn’t exist the same way.

“The Irish respond in a very different way to bereavement. Our default setting is to help.

“We didn’t ask anything from anybody when Kevin died. Yet, straight away, unbeknownst to us, people were organising table quizzes in Newry to help us.

“That’s the spirit of what we are trying to do.”