Global Rescue is kind of like ultra travel insurance. They offer rescue, emergency medical, evacuations, security - a whole slew of stuff. As an example, here's a press release about their actions during the Egyptian revolution earlier this year:
Global Rescue has deployed security teams to Egypt to provide security, transport and extraction services for the company's clients in country. The teams are led by special operations veterans that include former Navy SEALs and members of the Navy's Special Warfare Command.
They evacuated close to 200 people from Egypt during this time. Sent in security teams, chartered jets and got people out. Pretty good way to bug out of a collapsing country.
Here's their news page, which has a bunch of other accounts of evacuations and rescues. They're on the scene for disasters, rescue lots of people after medical emergencies or animal attacks, that kind of thing.
This scale of help is generally out of most people's reach - you get a hold of your embassy (if you're lucky), your family back home tries to help and/or you're depending on what you can organize with the locals. I certainly don't have a team of former SEALs and Spec War guys on speed dial -- if any of you guys happen to fit that description and want to be added to my speed dial, let me know.
Pretty interesting ; if you are going to be travelling in sketchy countries, definitely something to look into. I have a family member travelling to Africa soon to help out with non-profit efforts over there and I'm going to try to get them to invest in this. Not so much for TEOTWAWKI use, but an option for medical emergencies, political instability and localized troubles in far-flung places.
Global Rescue >
