Wake Forest Baptist’s AirCare Flight Team Wins National Paramedic Competition

March 15, 2016

For the first time ever, four flight paramedics with AirCare Critical Care Transport Services at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have won a national competition of professional emergency medical services teams.

Roger Horton, NREMT-P, Barry McMillian, NREMT-P, Robert Coleson, NREMT-P, and Justin Bowers, NREMT-P – all of whom are based in Elkin – placed first in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) 2016 Games Advanced Clinical Competition, held in Baltimore at the end of February.

The Wake Forest Baptist AirCare team is the first flight team to win this prestigious national competition; in the past, this honor was won strictly by ground crews. They are also the first flight team to ever advance to the final round. In the final scenario, the team was dispatched to a crowded rock concert to provide patient care ranging from intoxication to a set collapse.

In October, Horton and McMillian won the North Carolina Office of Emergency Medical Services’ (NC OEMS) statewide paramedic competition. It was the first time in the competition’s 25 years that a flight team had ever won.

AirCare is part of an EMS network serving patients in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina and includes air (helicopter) and ground ambulances stationed in strategic locations to provide fast, safe transportation for critically ill and injured patients.

Media Relations

Joe McCloskey: jmcclosk@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-1273

Mac Ingraham: mingraha@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-3487