The 32nd Annual Paramedic Competition was held in April at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro as part of the annual North Carolina EMS Expo.
Surry County paramedics Josh Booker and Josh LeCrone were among the regional winners and competed in a timed real-life scenario that pitted their training, judgement, and professionalism against some of the best in their field.
They advanced to the finals after winning their regional at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Booker explained that although a regional was held in Surry County, they competed in a different region. “This is by design, this was you do not compete in a place where the judges know or work with you and bias is not an issue.”
They competed against Cape Fear Valley LifeLINK Air, two teams representing Mecklenburg EMS, and Harnett County EMS, which ultimately took first place at this year’s competition.
Every team faced the same scenario and were sequestered from the action as other teams were brought in one at a time. Booker said of the standby area, “Believe it or not it’s relaxed, like a calm before the storm.”
Arriving on-scene
The convention center was made to appear like a city street where a vehicle had crashed into a building while fleeing the North Carolina Highway Patrol, who took part in the scene to lend more authenticity to the experience.
Booker explained, “When approaching the scene, you do a general survey as you are walking up, looking first for any threats that may harm you and next figuring out what you are dealing with.”
“Booker was team lead, and he was responsible for scene control, directing resources, and directing me on what patient to go to first,” LeCrone said. “We had 12 minutes to treat four severe life threats. If not treated appropriately they all had the possibility of dying. Judges are looking for fast treatment, appropriate treatment, and treating all life threats first.”
“When dealing with a mass casualty situation the goal is to do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people possible. This requires you to determine immediate life threats and address those first,” Booker said.
He said the competition created real emotion. “You do get an adrenaline rush like when you’re on a 911 call, if not a little more because of the time limit” and being in front of an audience of friends and “peers that all know what you should be doing before you even walk in the room.”
Booker said, “LeCrone and myself train to enter a scene the same way each time, in an attempt to have some consistency at the start no matter what situation we are dealing with. Once we arrive on scene and assess the situations we treat patients as needed…sometimes switching from one patient to another.”
When there are more patients than resources, he explained the team utilizes their smart triage system in order to sort out patients based on the severity of their situation. “In the beginning we only treat life threats such as a life-threatening hemorrhage or airway issues that could quickly result in death if not handled,” Booker said.
There are expected courses of treatment to be performed in a certain time frame, Booker said, all of which is part of the scenario design. “The judges are looking for the team to come in, address the situation, assess the patients, and properly determine what issue is occurring then to treat it appropriately.”
As is sometimes the case in real life, one of their patients did not survive. Booker said one of their patients was already in cardiac arrest upon their encounter with him due to being hidden behind a dumpster. “It was designed for him to be hidden and hard to find.”
With his years of experience in the competition, LeCrone said that some scenarios are built with challenges, like the hidden patient, to hamstring a team. “Every scenario is different. In some scenarios, they have a patient that needs CPR performed the entire time to keep one participant busy.”
He said that the constraints of the scenario are a double-edged sword. On one hand, “It is very nerve-racking due to limited time, limited resources, and a hundred-plus people watching you and it’s very realistic. However, due to mannequins and having to ask for information from a judge and not the patient is very different from real life.”
Surry County has won this competition six times since it began. Booker said he thinks those winning ways are, “Due to the amount of training our service offers and the pride they instill in us to work at Surry County EMS. We have always taken pride in being one of the best EMS agencies in the state and this is proof of that.”
There two already have more than 30 years combined experience in the field. Booker has been with Surry EMS since he graduated high school and worked at a fire department with his dad before that, which is where he gained interest in emergency services.
LeCrone also started right out of high school with Forsyth County EMS and has served both in the field and in competition with distinction since coming to Surry County EMS, having reached the state finals of this competition several times and winning it all in 2016 with partner Jose Burton.
He said that if a high school student came for advice about pursuing a career in emergency services that he would be honest with them. “EMS is not for the faint of heart… it is challenging both mentally and physically,” he said and noted the challenges that jobs in the public sphere have with low pay.
That said he added, “EMS is the most exciting and rewarding profession in my opinion. There is no other career you can go from eating lunch to saving a life.”
“I would say to come do a ride along with Surry County EMS and experience what it is like to work in Emergency Services,” Booker said, “That is the only true way to know, is to experience it firsthand and Surry County EMS will gladly assist them in that.”
“Emergency Services is a job that you are called to do, and if that is the case you will enjoy the job till the day you retire. I look forward to coming into work as much today as I did the first day I ever stepped foot on an ambulance,” he said.
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