When hospitalised in Paris I asked Mrs S#2 to DHL me my passport (that she had returned to the UK with) + some clothes, cash etc.
DHL "lost" the parcel, sending to to Paris via Dublin, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid. Fortunately a nice French Matron from the Local Amex Office called in with some cash for me (Mrs S#2 had also managed to be robbed of my Amex card en route back to the hotel) and undertook to "Sort ZE DHL" and by golly she did. The parcel arrived one hour before I was due to be med-evacced back to the UK so I did have a passport to get me on the train.