North Carolina Paramedic Flew Pivotal BlackFly eVTOL on Two 911 Calls in Hyde County, Reaching Patients 20 Minutes Before Ambulance
Why It MattersOperational 911 use of a single-seat eVTOL shows personal electric aircraft entering emergency medical response in rural areas, a role that sits outside conventional air ambulance and helicopter EMS operations.
Quinn Reece, a North Carolina paramedic with a background in emergency management, austere medicine and technical rescue, became the first pilot-paramedic to fly the Pivotal BlackFly, a single-seat eVTOL aircraft, on a 911 response in Hyde County, North Carolina.
On both of the operational calls she flew, Reece arrived and began providing ALS care approximately 20 minutes before the responding ground ambulance.
The details come from an episode of the EMS One-Stop podcast hosted by Rob Lawrence, published October 23, 2026, in which Reece and James Robinson describe the project.
