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Canadian student reunited with wallet lost while travelling overseas
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Daily Brew
The odds of retrieving a lost wallet are low to begin with, but factor in a trans-Atlantic voyage and the odds shrink to slim to none. However, with luck and the help of many strangers, a Newfoundland and Labrador student got his wallet back and with all of the money still inside.
Fine arts student Ryan David Butt was hiking through the Scottish Highlands during a break from his studies in England last month when he realized his wallet was missing.
Though he turned his hostel room upside down, the wallet, which contained all his cards, cash, and identification, had vanished.
"I looked everywhere ... tore apart the room, tore everything apart in that room and could not find it for the life of me," Butt told CBC News.
The Corner Brook resident whipped out his BlackBerry and emailed his sister, explaining his predicament and asking her to wire some emergency backup funds.
But the promise of funds would not pay for a ticket back to England. That's when Butt experienced his first brush with the kindness of strangers.
"My hostel roommate gave me £10 to catch the bus. Then some ladies who we'd hung out with the night before, they also gave me £10 pounds that I got food with," he told reporter Jeremy Eaton.
Before he left, Butt returned to the Citylink bus station and in the off chance that his wallet had turned up, filed a report with employee Stacey Robertson.
That's when he experienced his second brush with the kindness of strangers.
"I'm on the train between Gatwick and actual London when I get a phone call that says, 'Ryan, this is Susie. I've got your wallet right here in my hand,'" he said.
Robertson went out of her way to return the wallet, mailing it across the Atlantic to Butt's Newfoundland home, where the student had recently returned.
Butt's wallet arrived safely, intact, and holding every last card and bit of cash it had originally contained. The effort that went into their reunion did not go unnoticed by its owner. "Everybody pulled together to get little old me back to where I needed to be, safe. It was crazy," said Butt.
As for Citylink's employee extraordinaire, Stacey Robertson declined an interview with the CBC, but said she was pleased the wallet had made it back safely to Corner Brook.
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