Recognising a medical, paramedic or nursing student who has shown outstanding performance during a placement with EHAAT, this year’s Heaster Award was presented to Justus Wolff at North Weald Airfield.

Patricia and Michael Heaster presented the student with the award, which was established by the two parents after EHAAT attended an incident and attempted to save their son Michael’s life in a road traffic collision in 2014. Although the charity managed to re-establish a heartbeat, Michael did sadly die. But without the charity, his chances of survival would have been much smaller.

Wolff, who is studying medicine in Germany and spent time with EHAAT earlier this year as part of the charity’s elective programme, said: “I mainly chose EHAAT because it is one of the very few organisations actually enabling students to be an active observer on the helicopters. I have always been very passionate about pre-hospital emergency medicine and aviation – even before I started medical school. So, combining those two things, naturally, you end up with HEMS! I applied a year in advance because I was so motivated to get a spot here. Coming from a German pre-hospital care system, it was fascinating to see how things work around here.”

He also asserted that he was extremely grateful to have been awarded Student of the Year, and added: “This Award means so much because I absolutely loved my time with EHAAT, and it signifies that the team enjoyed my company as well.”

Indeed, Laurie Phillipson, Clinical Manager at EHAAT, said that Wolff integrated well into the EHAAT team. “He is very knowledgeable and incredibly passionate. He is particularly skilled at giving talks and we have already benefitted from a presentation on his project around the use of adrenaline in cardiac arrest,” she said. “He is also a keen aviator and would often talk about the flying side of things with the pilots. All in all, HEMS seems like the perfect future career for Justus. We look forward to seeing how his career develops.”