STARS Air Ambulance workers win Air Medical Transport Simulation competition

Chris Fay and Kevin Easton from the Saskatchewan-based STARS Air Ambulance took part in the Association of Air Medical Services’ (AAMS) 2022 Air Medical Transport Simulation competition and won.

The competition took place in Tampa Bay, Florida and Fay and Easton were the only Canadians to participate. Fay is a critical care paramedic, who has worked at STARS for four years, and Easton is a critical care nurse, who has been with STARS for a decade. It was the first time both had represented the air ambulance in this competition.

During the two-day event, they had to demonstrate their critical care skills against eight other teams. However, the criteria for the competition is ‘pretty guarded’ so it is unclear what the judges, who were also critical care workers in North America, were scoring on.

This was the 17th year that STARS has entered a team, and since 2002 it has always placed in the top three and has won seven times.

Fay joked that this added pressure, despite their preparations: “You don’t want to be the team that doesn’t place for the first time. That was probably the most stressful thing for me and Kevin was just we don’t want to be that team, but it is all in good fun at the end of the day,” he said.

STARS will receive Ca$10 million from five Saskatchewan-based Crown Corporations to continue their work.