Essex & Herts Air Ambulance announces Student of the Year

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) has announced this year’s winner of The Heaster Award, given by the Charity to its Student of the Year.

The award recognises a medical, paramedic or nursing student who has shown outstanding performance during a placement with EHAAT. It was established by David and Patricia Heaster, whose son Michael died following a road traffic collision in 2014. EHAAT attended the incident and gave him a chance of survival by re-establishing a heartbeat before airlifting him to Addenbrooke’s Major Trauma Centre

Patricia and Michael Heaster from Hertford presented the award to medical student Justus Wolff at North Weald Airfield, home to one of the charity’s two airbases.

Justus, who is studying medicine in Germany, spent time with EHAAT earlier this year as part of its student elective programme which allows student doctors, paramedics and nurses to shadow the Charity’s Critical Care Team.

Laurie Phillipson, Clinical Manager at EHAAT, said: “Justus 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.

“He is also a keen aviator and would often talk about the flying side of things with the pilots. All in all, Helicopter Emergency Medicine (HEMS) seems like the perfect future career for Justus. We look forward to seeing how his career develops.”

Justus 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.

“I’m very grateful to have been awarded Student of the Year. This Award means so much because I absolutely loved my time with EHAAT and it signifies that the team enjoyed my company as well.”