Hi, I'm Terra. Welcome to the Tourist SOS About page. We're happy you're here — feel free to reach out with any questions.
This is my our story
Before Tourist SOS, our founder spent 15+ years coordinating international medical evacuations across Southeast Asia — moving pilots, nurses, physicians, receiving hospitals, insurers, and immigration authorities across languages and time zones. That was just another day at the office. Until one night, it wasn't.
The call came from a wife and mother of two. Her husband, Abe, had suffered a C-3 spine fracture on vacation in a country where the local hospital couldn't perform the surgery he needed. The insurance company wasn't responding. The family didn't have the funds. Leadership was unavailable.
Trauma-capable care is rare — and in many tourist destinations, systems for these emergencies simply are not adequate. Without intervention, Abe faced a life of paraplegia.
Without payment secured, a medical team mobilized at 3 AM. A receiving facility was briefed and ready. Hours later, the patient was on a path toward the care that could change his life trajectory — and ours.
The next morning came the consequences. Leadership said: "You can save one life today, but then you'll be out of business and won't be able to save ten lives tomorrow."
Two weeks later, we delivered the left-behind luggage to a rehabilitation center. His wife insisted we see him. It was the day he was expected to sit up for the first time.
When we walked in, the therapist told him we'd arrived. He couldn't turn to look from the angle of the bed. He said: "I will stand for him." They'd said it would be weeks before he could stand.
He did it anyway — shaking, breathing hard, holding the walker — he stood. Then he turned, tears of pain and gratitude on his cheeks, and said: "Thank you. I'll be able to hug my kids again."
That moment changed everything.
Tourist SOS exists because emergency care shouldn't depend on luck, language, business ideals, or delays. We build the operational layer that helps clinics, responders, and travelers do things better — so emergencies don't become disasters.
Juan Antonio "Johnny" Quiroz
Founder & creator of Terra
Why we do this
Every year, millions of travelers face a medical emergency abroad with fragmented, uncoordinated care. When Abe needed life-saving spine surgery, we saw firsthand how broken those systems are — and how human compassion can bridge the gaps technology leaves behind.
How we do it
We built Terra — the intelligence that sits between travelers, hospitals, insurers, hotels, and transport. It handles intake, triage, provider matching, insurance verification, translation, and case coordination — replacing phone trees, WhatsApp groups, and spreadsheets with one conversation. Technology handles the complexity. People handle the care.
What we offer
Four doors into one network. SOS Travel is the traveler's — nearby care and their medical profile from their phone. SOS Pro gives clinics, hospitals, and transport providers the tools to take international patients and get paid. SOS Safe gives hotels, resorts, and tour operators a way to handle guest emergencies professionally. And Terra Core, our command center, coordinates every case and gives payers the network view before the claim arrives.
Philosophy
We build for the worst moment of someone's trip — when they're injured, confused, and far from home. Every decision starts there. Systems should serve people, not the other way around; if it doesn't make that moment better for the patient, the provider, or the family, we don't ship it.
Strategy
The system above isn't a diagram — it's how we're built. Start where the pain is sharpest — travelers in medical crisis with no clear path to care — and build outward:
- Providers — tools that reduce unpaid cases
- Payers — real-time verification that cuts fraud and processing time
- Destinations — infrastructure to protect visitors
Each side of the network makes the others stronger — backed by patent-pending coordination architecture.
The team behind every case
A medical emergency abroad runs through a dozen steps — confirming coverage, securing a guarantee of payment, sourcing air or ground transport, coordinating care, and billing it correctly. We built a dedicated specialist for each step, each one showing its work with every figure traced to a source, and a human signs off on the calls that matter. Around the clock, in your language, so no case waits in a queue.
Leadership
Command Center
The Apps
The Reach