CFED West Paramedic Challenge 2010

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CFED West works to bring fire, police, military and medical professionals together to develop relationships. One great way to do this was through the Paramedic Challenge Competition. This event was a fun and exciting competition where teams had an opportunity to demonstrate their skills during a realistic scenario.  Any EMS agency currently providing pre-hospital care or educational institution was invited to enter.

Captain Art Andres with the Ontario Fire Department states, "It's something that challenges every aspect of what a paramedic is required to do. It's not something that has been done in California in a long time." The last paramedic competition was held during the Inland County Trauma Center Symposium in 1991. CFED West now has that trophy from the 1991 competition, and the names of this year's winners will be added to it.

"They will have the perpetual trophy to take back, bragging rights to put at their station, their department, their ambulance company, to showcase that their team was the champ," Andres expresses. Along with the trophy, medals were given for first, second and third place finishers. Each member of the winning team also received the grand prize: a cruise for two. The competition lasted two days with two teams going to the finals to battle it out.

The finalists in the Paramedic Challenge were a team of members from American Medical Response (AMR), which is a private transport provider, and a team of members from the Rancho Cucamonga Fire Department. This year's competition consisted of a team of brand new paramedics that were just completing school competing against a team of paramedics that had been in the practice for almost 20 years. Even more shocking, neither team knew they had to compete in front of their peers until they came out to the pool area to perform their scenario.

Teams had a choice of the "patient" in their scenario being a live person, manikin, intubation head or other trainer type device. One team demonstrated a call to a lifeless infant floating in the pool by her mother. Captain Andres explained that their biggest challenge was to create a realistic opportunity for a person to demonstrate their skills  in a real life scenario. One of those stresses is the panicking mother who is meant to be a distraction.

All scenarios were judged by a panel consisting of an educator, physician and experienced field provider. Scoring was based on the most current editions of the following resources: ACLS Guidelines by the American Heart Association, Pediatric Advanced Life Support by the AHA/AAP, BTLS Advanced by Brady Publishing Revised, The Paramedic by The McGraw-Hill Companies and the US DOT 1998 EMT-P Curriculum. The three judges looked at different aspects of what the teams were performing and timed them on their work.

Captain Andres adds, "We've created an opportunity for people to be able to see what the paramedic does. And a young, energetic, enthusiastic, well-educated person being able to say 'You know what? I'm willing to risk it and compete in front of my friends.' " The competition was extremely close, but in the end, the winners were the veteran team from AMR San Bernardino County. Doctor Steve Tharratt, director of the California Emergency Medical Service Authority, presented the trophy to paramedics Tim Standon and Chris Linky.


Author:Barbara Brooks - Video, Renee Marquart - Text