Press Room

We have amazing stories to tell. Let our media contact coordinate interviews with our staff, and our members who have used our service to get home from some of the world’s most remote locations.

Couple Bought Evacuation Membership for Mexico, Used It in U.S.
Press Room >>

BIRMINGAM, Ala. (July 18, 2007) - Recovering at home in Colorado now, Air Ambulance Card® member Aleksandra Bruner feels a world away from the West Virginia hospital where she was briefly treated. Bruner and her husband James were on their way home from a cross-country driving trip when a simple urinary tract infection spread to her bloodstream. Uneasy about the level of care in an unfamiliar hospital five states from home, the Bruner’s used their Air Ambulance Card to fly her home for treatment by her own medical team at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colorado.

The Bruners spend part of each year at their second home in Mexico. They bought an Air Ambulance Card family membership after hearing stories from other expatriates who had to be flown home after getting sick. “It was funny because at first, neither one of us thought about this membership we had”, said Bruner. “Then all of a sudden it dawned on [my husband], if it’s good in Mexico, it should be good in the United States, and by golly it was!” That is fairly typical said Stan Bradley, executive vice-president of Air Ambulance Card. “People buy it for their European vacation or a business trip abroad, but don’t even consider how many trips they take to the beach or to visit family in the course of a year.”

Without the membership, James Bruner knew he was facing the possibility of a long recovery far from home. “I could see there’s no way she was going to be able to ride home in a car. I’d have to rent an apartment [in West Virginia,]” said Bruner. Add to that the fact that the Bruner’s were beginning to have serious concerns about the level of care available to them. “The people were nice,” said Bruner, “But the nurses told us the doctor had 500 patients. Half the people in the hospital were his patients.”

The Bruners called Air Ambulance Card on a Thursday afternoon. A dedicated medical plane was en route to pick her up on Friday morning. Recovering at home now, Aleksandra Bruner said she is now recommending the membership to everyone she talks to. “My husband and I do a lot of traveling, and I wouldn’t leave home without it. God, I don’t know what I would do in Charleston, West Virginia. That’s a totally alien country to me.”

Air Ambulance Card® provides travelers with prepaid hospital-to-hospital air ambulance service, domestically and abroad. The membership program offers services for a period of one year to families or individuals, and corporate accounts. Air Ambulance Card memberships are available to residents of the U.S. and Canada and cost $195 per year for individuals and $295 per year for families. For more information visit www.AirAmbulanceCard.com.

[PDF] WestViginia Colorado Transport