Our members tell it best. Read about their travel nightmares and you’ll quickly understand why an Air Ambulance Card membership is worth every penny.
Lesson Learned in Lapland “Last year I picked up an Air Ambulance Card membership application in a doctor’s office, intending to purchase a membership for my husband who travels extensively. Unfortunately I never got around to completing the application. In the meantime, my husband collapsed in an airport in Helsinki, Finland, and called me while being transported to a hospital there.” Jan Bowler, Durango, Colorado
Sally’s Spain Spill “We couldn’t speak the language at all, it was a Castilian Spanish, and we just couldn’t get any of it,” said Bill Moninger. What they did understand was that the doctor was recommending surgery within 3 days. “We didn’t know the competency level, it could have been great, but we didn’t speak the language. It just didn’t look like a good situation.” Bill Moninger, Loveland, Colorado
The rest of the story:
Bill’s wife Sally broke her ankle in a fall down hotel stairs. Air Ambulance Card flew her home for her surgery. Toledo, Spain, to Loveland, Colorado. Flight cost $75,000. Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
Costa Rica Fall “Four members of the flight crew walked into my hospital room with the American flag on the arm of their flight suits and said ‘Ms. Anna Frazelle, we’ve come to take you home.’ Words cannot describe how wonderful it was to see America in a foreign land. I felt like Air Ambulance Card was a part of my family.” Anna Frazelle, Wilson, North Carolina
The rest of the story:
Anna broke her back sliding down a waterfall in Costa Rica. Air Ambulance Card flew her home for her recovery. Costa Rica to North Carolina. Flight cost $26,000.
Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
Broken in Brazil “We were in a third-world country. You do not want to have that kind of surgery in those conditions, especially when you don’t speak the language. You need to be close to home, close to your doctors, not only for surgery, but for the recovery. I am forever grateful that there is a service like this out there. If I didn’t have it, I would still be [in Brazil] recovering.” Barbara Leutwiler, Boulder, Colorado
The rest of the story:
Barbara slipped and broke her kneecap in her hotel in a remote rainforest. Within hours of her accident, Air Ambulance Card was finalizing arrangements to dispatch an air ambulance to Brazil to bring Leutwiler and her husband home for her surgery. Brazil to Colorado. Flight cost $68,000. Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
Slippery Slopes in Utah “It was the last day of our trip, the last run down the mountain. I had two or three tibial fractures. With such a delicate surgery, I didn’t want to be put in a hospital with unknown doctors.” Dr. Robin Benton, New Orleans, Louisiana
The rest of the story:
Dr. Benton broke her leg skiing in Utah. Air Ambulance Card airlifted Benton to the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans to be operated on by her colleagues. Park City, UT to New Orleans, LA. Flight Cost $15,000. Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
Broken in Bali “Immediately I thought, ‘My gosh, this is what this membership is for.’ ”
Mary Stenseth, San Jose, California
The rest of the story:
Mary broke her hip while sightseeing in an outdoor market in Bali. Rather than have surgery in an Indonesian hospital, Stenseth was flown to the Mayo Clinic for treatment. Bali, Indonesia to Rochester, MN. Flight Cost $118,000.
Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
Cruise Control “I’m just glad we knew about Air Ambulance Card, because a lot of people don’t know about this. After what happened, I recommend this service to my family and friends.”
John Slanina, Rapid City, South Dakota
The rest of the story:
John was transported home from Italy after coming down with pneumonia while on a Mediterranean cruise. Rome, Italy to Rapid City, SD. Flight Cost $67,000.
Cost to Air Ambulance Card member $0.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (August 7, 2006) – Air Ambulance Card™ member Anna Frazelle is recovering at home from a broken back, after surgery in a Central American hospital. Anna Frazelle would have spent six weeks alone, recovering in Costa Rica if she had not had an Air Ambulance Card™ membership.
Frazelle, 46, her husband and daughters capped off a zip line tour of the rain forest by sliding down waterfalls. She hit a rock on the way down and broke her back in two places. “I came up and looked at my husband and said, ‘I can’t breathe,’ ” Frazelle said. She was transported to a makeshift medical hut, then, traveled 6 hours over bumpy, unpaved roads to a San Jose hospital for emergency surgery.
Meanwhile, Air Ambulance Card™ was dispatching a fully staffed air ambulance jet to bring Frazelle home. “Four members of the flight crew walked into my hospital room with the American flag on the arm of their flight suits and said ‘Ms. Anna Frazelle, we’ve come to take you home.’ Words can not describe how wonderful it was to see America in a foreign land,” said Frazelle. “I felt like Air Ambulance Card was a part of my family.”
Without her membership, the flight would have cost Frazelle $26,000 dollars cash, up front. “And the cost of the flight might be the least of an injured traveler’s worries,” said Sam Jackson, president of Air Ambulance Card™. “Imagine the costs if someone spends six weeks recovering in a foreign hospital or hotel. The time away from work alone could be financially ruinous.”
Air Ambulance Card™ provides travelers with hospital-to-hospital Prepaid 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.
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (September 19, 2005) – A $295 membership saved a Boulder, Colorado, woman from a $58,000 air ambulance bill. In August, Barbara Leutwiler slipped and shattered her kneecap while traveling in a remote area of Brazil. Two days before she left for the South American vacation, Leutwiler purchased a membership from Birmingham-based Air Ambulance Card™. Within hours of her accident, the company was finalizing arrangements to dispatch an air ambulance to Brazil to bring Leutwiler and her husband home to Colorado for surgery.
“We were in a third-world country. You do not want to have that kind of surgery in those conditions, especially when you don’t speak the language,” said Leutwiler. “You need to be close to home, close to your doctors, not only for surgery, but for the recovery.”
Leutwiler was in Anapolis, two hours outside Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. The day before her 59th birthday, she was on her way to breakfast when she slipped on a wet tile floor and broke her kneecap. “They didn’t even have ice to keep the swelling down,” said Leutwiler. Adding to the severity of the situation, Leutwiler had suffered a heart attack three years earlier. Because of the language barrier, she was having trouble communicating with doctors about the danger if given the wrong medicine. Hospital staffers also did not know how to dial out of the country. Leutwiler’s husband had an international operator connect him with Air Ambulance Card who handled everything. Within six hours, they had obtained the necessary visas, clearances and permits in order to dispatch the jet and medical team.
Air medical transport protection included in some standard travel insurance policies will transport to the nearest, appropriate hospital. “Some companies would have said the hospital in Brasilia was adequate, or maybe would have flown her to Rio,” said Stan Bradley, executive vice president of Air Ambulance Card. “We fly members to the hospital of their choice.” For Barbara Leutwiler, that was in Boulder, Colorado. The flight would have cost her $58,000 out of pocket. “They would have to pay their membership fee for 197 years to recoup the cost of this flight,” said Sam Jackson, president of Air Ambulance Card.
Leutwiler is recovering at home. Once she is well, she plans to travel overseas again. Of course her Air Ambulance Card will be the first thing she packs. “I am forever grateful that there is a service like this out there,” said Leutwiler. “If I didn’t have it, I would still be there recovering.”
Air Ambulance Card™ provides travelers with hospital-to-hospital Prepaid 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.
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If you're heading for the slopes this winter... we've got good news and bad. Thanks to better equipment, the rate of reported skiing injuries has declined 50 percent over the last four decades. Broken leg and knee injuries continue to be the most common type of injury reported. At Air Ambulance Card, we know this story well. Ask member Robin Benton:
“It was the last day of our trip, the last run down the mountain. I had two or three tibial fractures. With such a delicate surgery, I didn’t want to be put in a hospital with unknown doctors.” Dr. Benton broke her leg skiing in Utah. Air Ambulance Card airlifted Benton to the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans to be operated on by her colleagues. (To read more client testimonials, jump here.)
Snowboarding injuries, on the other hand, nearly doubled from 1991 to 2001. Here are three simple reminders as your set out to enjoy an active wintery escape:
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 6, 2006) – When a fellow Rotarian suggested an Air Ambulance Card membership, Mary Stenseth bought it. She had yet to realize, however, just exactly why she needed it.
Over the New Year holiday, Stenseth decided to cap off a mission trip to Thailand with a personal trip to Bali. While sightseeing in an outdoor market, Stenseth tripped on a boulder in the road and broke her hip. A local ambulance ferried her to an Indonesian hospital. It was the last place she wanted to have the surgery she needed. “Immediately I thought, ‘My gosh, this is what this membership is for’,” said Stenseth.
For five years, Stenseth has traveled to Thailand helping students as a Rotary International Volunteer. Before taking off for a previous trip, a fellow member suggested Stenseth purchase an Air Ambulance Card. The membership allows injured travelers to fly to the medical facility of their choice if they are injured more than 150 miles from home. The $195 annual membership fee proved to be a valuable investment years later.
“Not only did we get Mary to where she needed to be, but having this membership saved her over $110,000,” said Sam Jackson, president of Air Ambulance Card. Within minutes of getting her call, Jackson and the Air Ambulance Card team were making arrangements to have a jet equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and a highly trained aero medical team dispatched to transport Stenseth from her hospital bed in Indonesia.
While many air evacuation plans would have transported her only to the “nearest appropriate facility,” which in this case would likely have been a two-hour flight to Singapore, Air Ambulance Card transported Stenseth to the hospital of her choice. Stenseth wanted to be treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a 26-and-a-half-hour trip from Bali. “We even made a fuel stop in my hometown of San Jose,” said Stenseth, “but it was important to me to have the surgery at Mayo.”
Air Ambulance Card™ provides travelers with hospital-to-hospital Prepaid 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.
These stories are more common than you think. The CDC says cruisers may be subject to "exacerbation of existing chronic health conditions" as a result of changes in climate, diet, exercise, exposure to pollutants and increased stress from an unfamiliar environment. They say injuries are one of the most common reasons for passengers to seek medical care on a cruise.
In 2004, Air Ambulance Card member John Slanina came down with pneumonia while on a cruise in the Mediterranean. After spending three days in the ship's infirmary, Slanina was admitted to a hospital in Rome. He wanted to be treated by doctors at home, so Air Ambulance Card flew him home Rapid City South Dakota. The flight would have cost him $67,000, he didn't pay a dime more than his $295 yearly membership.
And you can expect cases like this to increase as cruise travel increases. In 2004, 10.8 million people took North American cruise vacations, and cruising is expected to continue to gain popularity, with an estimated 20.7 million cruise travelers in 2010, according to the CDC.
Air Ambulance Card is not a first responder in these cases. The company transports members from hospital to hospital (and no, US Navy Air Craft Carriers don't count, no matter how sophisticated the medical care!). Still, if you wind up in a port city hospital somewhere around the world... wouldn't it be nice to jet home to your own doctor.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. October 26, 2011) – Medical evacuation membership program Air Ambulance Card announced it has completed a successful transport from Toledo, Spain. Sally Moninger is recovering from surgery at home in Loveland, Colorado, after breaking her ankle during a fall down the stairs in her hotel. Moninger was first treat for injuries in a hospital in Spain, but she and her husband were concerned about the quality of care and a significant language barrier.
“We couldn’t speak the language at all, it was a Castilian Spanish, and we just couldn’t get any of it,” said Bill Moninger. What they did understand was that the doctor was recommending surgery within 3 days. “We didn’t know the competency level, it could have been great, but we didn’t speak the language. It just didn’t look like a good situation.”
The Moningers are members of Air Ambulance Card, which transports sick or injured members to the US or Canadian hospital of their choice when they are hospitalized 150 miles or more from home, anywhere in the world. “I went back to the hotel and got on the phone right away. I told them I had the card and gave him the number and he said, ‘Well, that's why you belong to Air Ambulance Card.’”
Air Ambulance Card dispatched a jet and a medical crew that flew the Moninger’s back home to Colorado, where Sally had surgery and physical therapy. The ability to come home for surgery not only gave the Moningers peace of mind, it also saved them from the cost and hassle of an unplanned stay in Toledo, Spain. Bill Moninger says it turned their experience from a nightmare to what he calls a ‘relatively pleasant’ experience. “When I called Air Ambulance Card and told them what was going on they didn’t hesitate to say that's why you have this coverage and we’ll get the wheels rolling for you, and they did.”
Air Ambulance Card® flies sick or injured members home to the US or Canadian hospital of their choice when they are hospitalized 150 miles or more from home, domestically or internationally. 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.
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Following is a testimonial from traveler Jan Bowler:
"Last year I picked up an Air Ambulance Card membership application in a doctor's office, intending to purchase a membership for my husband who travels extensively. Unfortunately I never got around to completing the application. In the meantime, my husband collapsed in an airport in Helsinki, Finland and called me while being transported to a hospital there. At 2 AM, I called the number on the Air Ambulance Card application, hoping they could advise me on the possibilities. They answered the phone on the second ring. When I explained my situation the lady on call said she would have someone call me back right away.
"10 minutes later, Stan Bradley, the Managing Director of the company called me to give me the numbers of 2 air ambulance services with whom I could deal directly. As it turned out, my husband was able to return to the US on a commercial flight, but in the meantime, I learned that it would cost over $60,000 to fly him back to the states via one of these private air ambulance services. You can imagine that I was kicking myself for having not purchased the card when I had the opportunity.
"But that's not all. At 3 PM the next afternoon, I got a call from Stan Bradley just checking in to see if everything turned out okay. This is definitely the kind of company I want to do business with and I am now an Air Ambulance Card holder, as is my husband. Lesson learned."
