Booking a hunt to Zimbabwe in late July this year and the safari company suggested a local extraction company to compliment Global Rescue as they contend the local guys get you out of the bush much faster. They then hand the baton to Global Rescue to get you to the States.
Any of you fellows follow this routine or just use Global Rescue?

EZ

Both. The MARS on the Zim side is only 10 per day IIRC.

That is exactly what was recommended. Price as well.

I'll be in Zim in late July myself.
Who will you be hunting with?

We hashed this one out a bit awhile back with some strongly advocating Global rescue and some TravelGuard. However the consensus was that MARS is the way forward in combination with whatever insurance plan you choose as it expedites evacuation from the bush. Not to mention that it is very cheap at $10 per day. A small pittance when considering how much a safari costs and that you are in a third world country.

SAVE Safari's: Leon dePlessis. Buffalo and plains game.

quote:

Originally posted by bwana cecil:
I'll be in Zim in late July myself.
Who will you be hunting with?

I'm going with Zambezi Hunters again.
Using Thierry (Legend) Labat again as my PH.
Going after a bull & cow buff & whatever else that needs shooting.
We fly out of Atlanta on July 16 at 7:35pm to Joburg.

Where does MARS operate?

Is MARS available in SA? If not, is there a service similar to it?

At $10/day I think it's worth the gamble that MARS may get you out faster. After all if you need to get out fast, minutes count.

I wonder if GR uses the MARS guys to evacuate you anyway? Might be worth looking into. I know some of these guys do subcontract with local medivac services. Might be worth a call to GR.

There is no reason to consider MedJet. They seem to have abandoned the hunting industry market anyway. I guess word got out that they don't like to live up to their contractual agreements!

Two years ago I was hunting in Zim when an individual that was in camp with me was injured by a buffalo. Mars transported them from the field to Vic Falls where Global Rescue or Medjet, not sure which they had, picked them up and tranferred them to Johannesburg to be stabilized. A few weeks later Global Rescue took them back to the States. Mars, as of last year, was ten dollars a day and appear to work in conjunction with Global Rescue or Medjet

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
At $10/day I think it's worth the gamble that MARS may get you out faster. After all if you need to get out fast, minutes count.

I wonder if GR uses the MARS guys to evacuate you anyway? Might be worth looking into. I know some of these guys do subcontract with local medivac services. Might be worth a call to GR.

There is no reason to consider MedJet. They seem to have abandoned the hunting industry market anyway. I guess word got out that they don't like to live up to their contractual agreements!

Wendell,

From the discussions we had on this subject about 6 months ago, we determined that Global does use the same assets as MARS for initial evacuation from the bush. One of the Zim operators stated that with Global only (no MARS), time is wasted as the MARS aircraft will not fly until Global's coverage is verified (or cash on the spot).

There were many who advocated Global over Travelguard citing that they wanted to know they were being evacuated by a reputable operator and aircraft and were not guaranteed that with Travelguard. However, closer inspection revealed that the only real difference between the two options (excluding MedJet) is that Global has a staff of doctors on call at Johns Hopkins back in the states. This statement applies to Zim only as MARS is a Zim outfit. Other countries may be different and Global may offer an advantage there.