Hyde County in North Carolina Becomes First in USA to Deploy eVTOL Aircraft for Emergency Medical Response 

A flight-trained para­medic pilot­ing Piv­otal’s eVTOL air­craft arrived to a 911 emer­gency call in North Car­oli­na approx­i­mate­ly 20 min­utes before a ground ambu­lance, in what has been described as a nation­al first which could reshape emer­gency med­ical response in rur­al Amer­i­ca.

The announce­ment was made today (Tues­day) by Hyde Coun­ty Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices, Code Blue Resources and Piv­otal. Dur­ing two live 911 emer­gency calls, para­medic Quinn Reece pilot­ed the air­craft direct­ly to GPS coor­di­nates near each emer­gency scene.

Serv­ing as both pilot and the sole Advanced Life Sup­port (ALS) provider aboard the air­craft, Reece car­ried essen­tial med­ical equip­ment, includ­ing a car­diac mon­i­tor, air­way sup­plies and a pri­ma­ry response bag, allow­ing patient assess­ment and treat­ment to begin imme­di­ate­ly upon land­ing. 

The oper­a­tional mis­sions mark the first deploy­ment of an eVTOL air­craft as part of rou­tine emer­gency med­ical response in the Unit­ed States. By dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing the “First-to-Patient” interval—the crit­i­cal time between dis­patch and the arrival of advanced med­ical care—the pro­gram demon­strates a new mod­el for deliv­er­ing life­sav­ing treat­ment in geo­graph­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing com­mu­ni­ties where every minute can influ­ence patient out­comes. 

Months of plan­ning, in-depth flight train­ing and oper­a­tional prepa­ra­tion pre­ced­ed the mile­stones. Hyde Coun­ty EMS, Code Blue Resources and Piv­otal devel­oped the nation’s first con­cept of oper­a­tions (CONOPS) for inte­grat­ing eVTOL air­craft into emer­gency med­ical response, com­plet­ing more than 300 train­ing sor­ties before launch­ing live mis­sions under Pub­lic Air­craft Oper­a­tions. Akute Net­works, serv­ing as Avi­a­tion Pro­gram Man­ag­er, worked with the part­ners to devel­op the oper­a­tional frame­work, pro­to­cols and flight pro­ce­dures that made the his­toric mis­sions pos­si­ble. 

Car­la Bak­er, Pres­i­dent of Code Blue Resources, said: “From the begin­ning, our goal was­n’t sim­ply to prove an eVTOL could respond to a 911 call—it was to prove that Advanced Life Sup­port could reach patients soon­er. This project demon­strat­ed far more than the suc­cess­ful inte­gra­tion of avi­a­tion into EMS.

“It val­i­dat­ed a new mod­el for emer­gency response—one where expe­ri­enced para­medics can be safe­ly trained to fly, respond, and begin advanced patient care soon­er in com­mu­ni­ties where time and geog­ra­phy have always been bar­ri­ers. We believe the frame­work devel­oped through this part­ner­ship pro­vides a prac­ti­cal foun­da­tion for oth­er com­mu­ni­ties explor­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty and the future of emer­gency med­ical response.” 

Unlike tra­di­tion­al med­ical heli­copters, which are gen­er­al­ly dis­patched for patient trans­port require large land­ing zones, Pivotal’s elec­tric VTOL air­craft can land in small clear­ings near a patien­t’s loca­tion, includ­ing grass, pave­ment and oth­er suit­able sur­faces.

With its low acoustic sig­na­ture and with­out the heavy blast of air pro­duced by heli­copter rotors, respon­ders can oper­ate safe­ly in envi­ron­ments where con­ven­tion­al heli­copters may be imprac­ti­cal. 

Hyde Coun­ty spans near­ly 1,500 square miles of land and water, mak­ing it one of North Car­oli­na’s largest and most geo­graph­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing EMS response areas. Annu­al­ly, the coun­ty’s emer­gency ser­vices answer approx­i­mate­ly one thou­sand 911 calls 24/7 with EMS pro­fes­sion­als deliv­er­ing both basic and advanced life sup­port.

Ken Karklin, CEO of Piv­otal, said: “Emer­gency med­i­cine has mea­sured response in miles dri­ven for decades. The Hyde Coun­ty pro­gram demon­strat­ed that it can instead be mea­sured in min­utes saved. When a flight-trained para­medic can fly direct­ly to a patient rather than dri­ve around rivers, farm­land and oth­er geo­graph­ic bar­ri­ers, advanced med­ical care begins soon­er. This is an entire­ly new approach to first response.” 

The program’s suc­cess rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for both emer­gency med­i­cine and advanced air mobil­i­ty. While heli­copters remain indis­pens­able for trans­port­ing crit­i­cal­ly ill and injured patients, the mod­el estab­lished in Hyde Coun­ty intro­duces a new cat­e­go­ry of emer­gency response: using ultra­light elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing air­craft to rapid­ly deliv­er trained med­ical pro­fes­sion­als direct­ly to the point of need, expand­ing emer­gency reach while reduc­ing response times. 

The frame­work estab­lished in Hyde Coun­ty will serve as a blue­print for emer­gency med­ical agen­cies nation­wide seek­ing faster, more effi­cient ways to deliv­er Advanced Life Sup­port to patients. 

Code Blue Resources is a North Car­oli­na-based emer­gency ser­vices con­sult­ing, edu­ca­tion, and tech­nol­o­gy inte­gra­tion com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to advanc­ing emer­gency care and improv­ing patient out­comes.

Found­ed by expe­ri­enced EMS pro­fes­sion­als, the com­pa­ny pro­vides clin­i­cal edu­ca­tion, emer­gency med­ical equip­ment, and strate­gic con­sult­ing to pub­lic safe­ty agen­cies, health­care orga­ni­za­tions, and indus­try part­ners. Learn more at www.codeblueresources.com. 

An indus­try pio­neer, Piv­otal is renowned for the Black­Fly, the first light pow­ered-lift eVTOL to be com­mer­cial­ly avail­able and deliv­ered to cus­tomers in the Unit­ed States. Piv­otal recent­ly announced par­tic­i­pa­tion as a team mem­ber of the Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive eIPP (MSCE) led by Pen­nDOT select­ed by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) for the eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP). 

In Octo­ber 2023, Piv­otal unveiled its next-gen­er­a­tion pro­duc­tion air­craft, the Helix, open­ing sales in Jan­u­ary 2024. As the first light eVTOL OEM to achieve AS9100D cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Piv­otal is ded­i­cat­ed to the high­est stan­dards of aero­space qual­i­ty and man­u­fac­tur­ing excel­lence.

The company’s dis­tinc­tive tilt-air­craft archi­tec­ture and scal­able tech­nol­o­gy plat­form have been under con­tin­u­ous improve­ment for well over a decade, and today, Piv­otal has the most mature tech­nol­o­gy in the light eVTOL and civil­ian pow­ered-lift cat­e­gories. Piv­otal air­craft take off and land vertically—no run­way need­ed. Piv­otal air­craft offer incred­i­ble flex­i­bil­i­ty for a range of use cas­es includ­ing recre­ation, short-hop com­mutes, defense, and pub­lic safe­ty mis­sions.