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Charlottetown native wins Western Canada air ambulance competition

Charlottetown native wins Western Canada air ambulance competition

A former head of the Paramedics Association of P.E.I. was half of the winning team at STARS air ambulance's Western Canada simulation competition earlier this month.

Charlottetown native Matthew Hogan and his teammate Jenny Thorpe captured the regional title in Edmonton on June 12 and will go to the North American competition Oct. 22 to 24 in Phoenix, AZ.

STARS — which stands for Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service — has six bases across the Prairies, including Hogan's in Saskatoon.

"The teams are meant to represent how we typically function in the aircraft," said Hogan, adding that each team has a critical-care nurse and critical-care paramedic.

'They do their best to make them stressful'

This was the fourth year of competition for Hogan and Thorpe — they won the Saskatoon competition to move on to the regionals. They took lessons from past years, particularly improving their communication skills, Hogan said.

"These scenarios they put you in, they do their best to make them stressful and really make you cognitively overloaded," he said.

"You'll have a very challenging medical case with maybe one or two patients, but then you'll also have bystanders who may or may not be helpful. You'll have often limited resources or be in a very obscure environment, so it's really important you be able to communicate well with your partner."

'Helping people on their worst day'

While Hogan enjoys the challenge, the goal is to become a better first responder, he said.

"With STARS, we know we tend to be going to the more severe cases, so we need to be at the top of our game. This is all about making us better for those situations."

Hogan wanted to be a first responder from a young age, as his father was a firefighter for 35 years and several of his uncles have done similar work.

"I liked the idea of helping people on their worst day and liked learning more about the medical side."

Humboldt responders 'months and years' of support

After the Humboldt Broncos' bus crash on April 6 that killed 16 people in Saskatchewan, the first responders were on Hogan's mind.

"You think first about the families and the friends and the victims themselves and you worry about them," he said. "But I think as a first responder, very quickly our next thought is to think about our colleagues who respond to those types of incidents," he said.

"You want to make sure they have the support [and] that it's not just going to be there for a short period of time, that it's going to be there with them for the months and years following."

Family, beach highlight trips home

He called STARS a "great organization" that he's lucky to work for.

"It's really nice that they have the focus on education they do and allow us to do this kind of thing."

Hogan and his wife Natacha, 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter have been in Saskatoon for nearly seven years, but P.E.I. holds a sizable place in their hearts. Natacha is from the Oyster Bed Bridge/Rustico area.

"[Saskatoon] is home right now. With that being said though, P.E.I. is still home too."

They return every summer to spend time with family and of course, the beach, which the kids particularly enjoy.

"Both my wife and I grew up on the Island and we love it there, so we make sure we get home every year."

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