Air Ambulance From Mexico to Houston

Houston’s Mexican community travels differently

Houston has more than half a million Mexican-born residents, around 37% of its foreign-born population, and roughly 50 registered clubes de oriundos. But its origin states are not Chicago’s. Houston skews northern and central — Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato, alongside Jalisco and Michoacán, with communities from Hidalgo, Puebla and Veracruz around Spring Branch and Long Point.

That changes the flying. A large share of Houston trips are to the northeast of Mexico, which is close enough that families often drive. Driving home is fine. Driving back with a patient who has just had a stroke is not.

Where we fly from

Northeast — Monterrey, Reynosa, Matamoros, Tampico, Ciudad Victoria and Saltillo.
Central — San Luis Potosí, León and Bajio, Querétaro, Aguascalientes.
West — Guadalajara, Morelia, Puerto Vallarta.
Gulf and south — Veracruz, Villahermosa, Ciudad del Carmen, Tuxtla.

Into Houston: Hobby and Bush Intercontinental, with ground ambulance to the Texas Medical Center, Memorial Hermann, Houston Methodist, MD Anderson or wherever the patient is being treated. Monterrey to Houston is under two hours.

The Texas Medical Center case

Houston is also where patients come to. The Texas Medical Center draws oncology, cardiac and transplant patients from all over Mexico, and a significant part of our Houston work is flying Mexican patients north for treatment that is not available at home, then flying them back when the course finishes.

If you are coordinating care at a Houston centre for a patient currently in Mexico, we handle the transport in both directions and the paperwork around it.

For clubes de oriundos and federations

If you lead a club de oriundos or a state federation in Houston, this is worth ten minutes of your time.

Houston is the third-largest hometown-association metro in the United States, behind Dallas and Chicago, with around 50 registered clubs. The Mexican Consulate General in Houston keeps the current directory and federation contacts.

Your members travel to the same municipio, often in the same weeks, and many of them are older or travelling with elderly parents. One serious illness during the fiesta or over Christmas turns into a family raising forty thousand dollars on GoFundMe in a week. We have watched it happen more than once.

We can set up collective membership for a club or federation, so your members are covered as a group rather than one by one. We will also come and explain it at a meeting, in Spanish, with no obligation and nothing to sign on the night. If your club already fundraises for an ambulance or a clinic back home, this is the same instinct pointed at your own members.

Write to us and ask for the clubes de oriundos desk.

Before the next trip: the Paisano membership

Most of the calls we take from Houston families are made after something has already happened, when the only option left is a full-price transport arranged in a hurry.

The Paisano membership costs US$119 and covers a trip of up to 30 days. If the member is hospitalised in Mexico during that window and needs to come back, the transport home to the hospital of their choice is covered: ICU jet or medical escort depending on what the patient clinically needs, plus a ground ambulance inside Mexico, travel for one companion where the aircraft allows, and a 24/7 line answered in Spanish and English.

For families who travel to Tamaulipas, Nuevo León or Guanajuato two or three times a year, the annual membership at US$349, or US$499 for a household, works out cheaper than buying the 30-day cover each trip.

Cancel within 7 days of purchase for a full refund, provided the trip has not started and no claim has been made. Transport to the United States requires documentation permitting lawful entry; the membership does not create a right of entry and does not replace a visa.

See the membership plans and sign up — or read the guía del Programa Paisano en español.

Licensing and authority

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance operates as Med Jets USA, Inc. under Florida Department of Health EMS Service Provider licence AIR9505, status clear, verifiable on the State of Florida public licence register. In Mexico we operate as Med Jets S.A. de C.V. under AOC MTS/2015. Jet Rescue Air Ambulance is an indirect air carrier; all flights are operated by FAA Part 135 certificated direct air carriers or their foreign equivalents. Flying patients since 1994.

If it has already happened

Call us anyway. Send a photo of the insurance card front and back, the patient name and date of birth, the hospital they are in, and a short description of the medical situation. If there is no passport, say so — it is a smaller obstacle than most people think. You will reach a mission coordinator, not a call centre, and the benefits review costs nothing.