Kimmy Fasani’s story of how a family travel membership became lifesaving support for her two-year-old son.
Kimmy Fasani and her husband, Chris Benchetler, built their lives around mountain travel. As elite professional athletes, they understood risk. They understood injuries. They understood what it meant to be far from home when something went wrong.
“We became Global Rescue members because we had injuries in foreign countries,” Fasani said. “It was always a question of how can we get the choice of medical care needed and wanted.”
Years earlier, Benchetler had broken his collarbone in Japan. Doctors there wanted to operate, but the language barrier and uncertainty made an already stressful situation harder. Fasani had also watched friends face the burden of arranging and paying for flights out of foreign countries after medical emergencies. Her experience begged a serious question: “How could we get out of these countries quicker to get to our hospital of choice at home and be able to start our recovery?”
That question eventually led them to Global Rescue. At the time, Fasani thought of the membership as protection for herself and her husband. They were high-caliber athletes who traveled into remote mountain environments. They knew that if one of them was hurt in the backcountry, access to the right medical care could define the recovery.
“We’ve always been very forward with how we manage our injuries,” Fasani said. “Because we’re high-caliber athletes, we knew that the best medical care to get us back into our performance shape was necessary.”
But the first person in their family to need Global Rescue was not Fasani. It was not Benchetler. It was their two-year-old son.
A Small Symptom That Became a Medical Emergency
Fasani had purchased the family’s Global Rescue membership just a few months before their winter travel began. She was driving to Canada with her son and a caretaker so she could work in the backcountry. During the drive, she noticed her son had diarrhea.
“It was as simple as that,” Fasani said. “He was a healthy kid, never sick.”
As a new mother, she tried not to panic. Children get stomach viruses. Toddlers have off days. At first, nothing suggested a life-threatening illness. When they arrived in Canada, her son was still a little lethargic, but not in a way that seemed dramatically unusual. Fasani felt comfortable enough to leave him with the caretaker while she went into the mountains.
Then the weather changed. A storm was coming in, so Fasani returned to the hotel instead of staying overnight in the backcountry.
“I get back to the hotel and my son is extremely lethargic and pale,” she said. “Something just wasn’t sitting completely right.”
The next morning, her son woke up vomiting bright green bile. Fasani took him to a clinic. He slept through the entire appointment. The doctor told her that if he did not urinate twice by the end of the day, she should take him to the emergency room.
“Those few words were foreshadowing for me,” Fasani said.
She called her pediatrician in California and sent videos so the doctor could see how her son looked. The pediatrician was concerned, too. By bedtime, he still had not urinated. Fasani had spent the day forcing fluids, coconut water and electrolytes, hoping dehydration was the issue. At the hospital, doctors still could not immediately tell what was wrong.
Around midnight, bloodwork revealed the truth: her son had HUS, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, a rare and potentially life-threatening illness that can develop after certain bacterial infections. The condition damages red blood cells and can cause acute kidney failure, particularly in young children. In her son’s case, his kidneys were shutting down, and he needed specialized medical care immediately. The local hospital called BC Children’s Hospital.
“BC Children’s Hospital says this blood work shows that he’s in kidney failure,” Fasani said. “And I’m in a very small mountain rural hospital. And I’m about eight hours driving from BC Children’s Hospital. And it’s midnight.”
And a major storm was moving in.
The doctor told her, “We need to get your son out of here immediately.”
Global Rescue Steps In
The local doctor began working through the Canadian medical evacuation system. Fasani, meanwhile, insisted they call Global Rescue.
“I had never used the Global Rescue membership before,” she said. “I had no idea what to expect or how to navigate the process.”
The physician called Global Rescue on Fasani’s behalf while Fasani stayed with her son.
“It was so efficient and so quick that they were able to give us directions,” Fasani said.
Global Rescue gathered the medical information, reviewed the lab work, brought physicians into the case and began coordinating the next steps. Fasani had expected a transport service. What she experienced was much more.
“I was just expecting the nurse to call and somehow there was going to be a plane to take him away,” Fasani said. “But instead, it was full service. It was this trusted, reliable care.”
That distinction mattered immediately. The situation was urgent. Her son was critically ill. The hospital was rural. The specialist care he needed was hours away. The storm threatened to limit transportation options. Global Rescue’s team worked quickly to understand the medical condition and logistics.
“There was so much advocacy with Global Rescue that I had so much confidence that my son was going to be in the best hands possible,” Fasani said. “There was so much due diligence.”
By early morning, Fasani knew her son would be transported first because of the severity of his illness and the incoming weather.
“[Global Rescue was] able to shift their schedule and prioritize different patients to make sure that my son got to the best hospital for what he was facing,” she said.
“Because of Global Rescue, I Wasn’t Alone”
Looking back, Fasani believes the timing was critical.
“I truly feel like the way Global Rescue prioritized getting my son out of there before the storm was the number one detail,” she said. “I don’t think we would have been put on a priority list.”
In the middle of the night, while most of the world was sleeping, Fasani was navigating the most frightening experience of her life.
“Because of Global Rescue, I wasn’t alone,” she said.
That may be the clearest way to understand the value of the membership. The medical transport mattered. The logistics mattered. The financial protection mattered. But for Fasani, the emotional impact was equally as powerful.
“I felt like there were other people advocating for me at Global Rescue versus just being another patient in a foreign country,” she said.
Global Rescue paid for and coordinated the flight and ambulance transport to BC Children’s Hospital. Once there, Fasani’s son was admitted to intensive care and placed under the care of specialists. Global Rescue had removed the massive upfront burden of emergency medical transport. And in this case, getting to the right hospital made all the difference. The nephrologist at BC Children’s Hospital had deep experience treating HUS.
“There was so much confidence when I arrived at that hospital,” Fasani said. “It was almost like I drove to Canada with my son sick to end up at the right hospital.”
The Support Continued
Global Rescue’s role did not end once Fasani and her son arrived at BC Children’s Hospital.
“Every day I was in the hospital, Global Rescue was checking in,” Fasani said.
The team reviewed labs, spoke with doctors, offered opinions and made sure their guidance aligned with the treating physicians. “Again, continued advocacy,” she said.
Eventually, Global Rescue coordinated a second medical transport home to California. Fasani and her son flew with medics and were able to choose the hospital where he would continue care.
“We got to choose our hospital in California, and that made it so much easier because we were able to have family come and help,” she said. “You guys did exactly what you said. You got us back to our hospital of choice.”
Not Just for Adventure Travelers
Before this emergency, Fasani associated Global Rescue with the kind of risks she and her husband faced as professional athletes. “If I broke my leg in the backcountry,” she said, “that’s what I thought it was for.”
Her son’s illness changed that completely.
“Global Rescue to me now is the thing, number one, when I’m booking a trip or if I hear friends booking a trip, it’s the one thing that I recommend,” she said. “It’s for the entire family. It’s for any time you leave the country.”
Her son was not injured skiing or climbing. He was not in the backcountry. He was a toddler who became critically ill during family travel. That experience reshaped how she talks about travel protection.
“To anybody that is traveling, Global Rescue creates a peace of mind so that if an emergency happens, you’re not stuck there alone,” she said. “You have somebody to help you navigate that challenge.”
A Lesson Fasani Wants Other Families To Know
Fasani had learned the hard way what it’s like to be injured overseas without Global Rescue. The year before her son’s emergency, she broke her arm in Japan while traveling with an 11-month-old baby.
“My husband had just left,” she said. “I have a broken arm. I need to go home for surgery. I’m packing up with an 11-month-old baby. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is so complicated.”
That earlier experience was difficult. But her son’s medical crisis was different.
“When I actually needed it during a life-threatening situation, I was really lucky,” Fasani said. “Not having to learn the hard way is so much easier.”
That is why she wanted to share her story.
“For the minimal charge that we pay per year, the annual membership, the amount that it saved us in stress and financial was massive,” she said.
Her son recovered. Her family returned home. But the experience permanently changed the way Fasani thinks about travel. Global Rescue was not just a membership. It was a safeguard for her entire family.
“It saved my son’s life to be able to have this service,” Fasani said. “Global Rescue is a resource for each member of your family when you’re traveling.”
