Richmond Ambulance Authority Wins ODEMSA’s 2010 Regional Award For ‘Outstanding EMS Agency’ and Captain Wes Wampler of RAA Wins Regional ‘Outstanding Prehospital Provider’ of the Year

Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA) has been selected to receive the Old Dominion EMS Alliance’s (ODEMSA) 2010 Regional Award for Outstanding EMS Agency and Captain Wes Wampler, operations supervisor for RAA and a long-time volunteer with the Harrisonburg Volunteer Rescue Squad, has been named Regional Outstanding Prehospital Provider of the year.

In a letter to the Richmond Ambulance Authority, Heidi Hooker, executive director of ODEMSA, said:  “The ODEMSA Regional Award is a reflection of how much you and your actions are valued within the Central Virginia EMS System.  It also is a small token of appreciation for all that you do to enhance prehospital patient care in the Old Dominion EMS Alliance region.   Judges thought your actions deserve regional and statewide recognition.”

ODEMSA’s criteria for the Regional Award for Outstanding EMS Agency reads as follows:  An EMS agency that exemplifies outstanding professionalism and service to its community; whose high level of patient care is evident by innovative training, community awareness, preventive health programs, public relations efforts and participation in local, regional and statewide EMS systems.  

ODEMSA says the award recipients have demonstrated a pattern of conduct or activities that has culminated in an exceptional improvement of the emergency medical services system in the locality, region or state, or performed a single unusual event that was beyond ordinary duty.   Richmond Ambulance Authority’s prehospital cooling of cardiac arrest patients in the field, which has helped to dramatically improve resuscitation and

survival rates, was noted among RAA’s achievements.  This in-field cooling during resuscitation, followed by VCU’s sophisticated post-resuscitation care, is now allowing the discharge of over 40 percent of these aggressively cooled cardiac arrest patients – alive and neurologically intact – compared to the national survival of approximately 6 percent.

“We are truly honored to receive the ODEMSA Regional Award,” said Chip Decker, CEO of the Richmond Ambulance Authority.  “Richmond Ambulance is dedicated to providing the finest prehospital care possible to the citizens of Richmond and to have our efforts recognized by our peers means a great deal to us.”  

Captain Wes Wampler, Operations Supervisor for the Richmond Ambulance Authority and also a long-time volunteer with the Harrisonburg Rescue Squad, was named regional winner of the ‘Outstanding Prehospital Provider’ of the year award.  This award goes to an individual who exemplifies outstanding dedication and service to his or her community through involvement in EMS.  Wampler was 17 when he started volunteering with the Harrisonburg Rescue Squad and, even after joining RAA fulltime, he still volunteers there 48 to 60 hours per month.

“We are extremely proud of Wes and the example he has set for so many in EMS,” said Decker.  “He is a true leader with a passion for EMS and his contributions are innumerable as a supervisor, paramedic and accredited emergency medical dispatcher.   He has even donated his own accrued leave time to others in their hour of need, one of many reasons he is so highly regarded by his co-workers.”

The ODEMSA Regional Awards will be presented at a gathering on July 30, 2010, at American Legion Post 354 pavilion on the James River in Chesterfield County.   Winners of the Regional Awards will be automatically entered into competition for the 2010 Governor’s EMS Awards which will be announced during the 31st Annual Virginia EMS Symposium at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott on Saturday, November 13.