Need help for magazine story: Know anyone like this?
 

Hello all,

I'm working on a piece for a national business magazine about
international business travel--specifically, how to
handle potentially sticky situations abroad. I'm
trying to find people who have experienced one of the
following, while on business travel abroad (overseas
study or tourist visits do not qualify):

-a coup or other major political crisis
-a disease outbreak (SARS, avian flu, Ebola, etc)
-a medical emergency which required hospitalizaton or
evacuation
-a mugging. pickpocketing, passport or credit cards
lost/stolen
-anti-American violence
-kidnapping
-any sort of scam

Do you know of anyone (friends, family, colleagues,
yourself) that might be willing to talk with me?
Please let me know ASAP.


Thanks for all of your (much appreciated) help.

-Sid

Find a soldier who has done a tour of duty in Iraq. S/he will have gone there for "business", and will likely have faced at least the threat of a major political crisis, a medical emergency (wounds from combat or booby traps), and/or anti-American violence.

Real helpful there, buddy :rolleyes:

Don't know if you'd consider it "business," but I suppose you could: My mom was on a medical mission trip to Haiti during a coup. If I remember her story correctly, I believe they traveled through towns with clear signs of bloodshed in the streets to get to the airport, where they were smuggled aboard a plane that had delivered a diplomatic team or emergency supplies or something like that (the airport had otherwise been closed) for its return to Miami. My mom was interviewed on CNN upon their arrival in Miami.

Then a couple of years ago, her husband was mugged while they were on vacation in Spain, but that certainly wouldn't qualify as business travel.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot this:

My dad worked for DuPont in Isfahan, Iran for a couple of brief assignments. Both occurred during the Islamic revolution. The Ayatolla Khomeini returned to Iran during the second assignment. I believe he tells the story that every day's first order of business was to cover the day's evacuation plan if that day turned out to be "the day." A Bell-Huey helicopter plant down the road reportedly stopped shipping inventory and kept the helicopters fully fueled to be used in an emergency evacuation of Americans if needed. At the end of the second assignment, my mom came to visit him in Tehran and a few days after they left, the apartment where they had stayed was firebombed because of its association with Americans.

My dad also worked on a project in the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years, and possibly also during the fall of the Soviet Union, though I don't remember him being there during any periods of acute violence.

He was also in Berlin on business 3 days after the wall fell there, and experienced the heady days of reunion even before the nation was officially reunited. I remember dusting off my rusty German to call the contact number he had left for his Berlin visit, to relay a request that he bring me home a piece of the wall.

Finally, my company's primary owner is a major mover and shaker in Hong Kong and now in China, and was reportedly one of the insiders on the negotiations surrounding the handover of Hong Kong to China. But I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be all that interested in being interviewed about that.

I've been in 6 of those situations but have no urge to be written about in a nameless magazine from an unknown poster.

I've had two and an attempt on a third, but in the context of a vacation rather than a business trip.

First country I thought of was Vietnam, and how hard it'd be to go over there for any length of time and not get hit with one of those, unless you were very sheltered.

Deleted.

I've been to MNL for two coups and a volcanic eruption. All three events were grossly sensationalized by the US media. No big deal while there.

I, too, have no interest in talking to any media.