The Tennessee Ambulance Service Association (TASA) has named Vanderbilt LifeFlight’s Vernon Carl Pierce the Jimmy Studdard EMT of the Year.
An advanced emergency medical technician, Pierce has been with LifeFlight since 2009 and works for the Event Medicine division, which provides emergency services for more than 600 events a year, including EMS coverage for the Nashville Predators. He is one of the team members specially trained to care for any on-ice hockey injuries when the Predators are playing home games at Bridgestone Arena.
Pierce was part of the Nashville Fire Department’s first EMT class in 1976 and retired from the Nashville Metro Fire/EMS Department in 2011 after a 35-year career.
“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Carl since 2009 when he joined LifeFlight’s newly created event medicine division,” said Lis Henley, R.N., AEMT, director of Vanderbilt LifeFlight. “Since then he’s worked more than 1,000 events and assisted throughout the Medical Center, including working our patient discharge lounge, assisting in our busy emergency department, delivering and cleaning spine boards and helping with whatever project he can.”
Jeanne Yeatman, R.N., EMT, administrative director of Emergency Services, said Pierce is a true EMS ambassador.
“He does not seek recognition and gets satisfaction from knowing he helped someone, and that he’s done his job,” Yeatman said. “I had the privilege of hiring him in my former role as director of LifeFlight. I was immediately impressed with his approach to patient and family care and his constant desire for learning. These are all important parts of our culture at Vanderbilt and I knew he would be a great fit.”
