GREENSBORO — Surry County Paramedics Roger Horton and Barry McMillian competed Sunday at the N.C. Emergency Medicine Today Paramedic Competition against the reigning Stokes County paramedics who have won two times in a row.

Horton and McMillian are hoping for an upset this year. The two won the county-level competition and a regional competition at Wake Tech Community College on July 24 to be able to compete at the state level for the first time this weekend. The medics competed against two-time winners Stokes County paramedics Scott Brown and Fred Lawson, who are hoping for a “three-peat.”

They also faced off against teams from Mecklenburg, Davidson, Eastern Wake and Pasquotank-Camden counties.

The competition was viewed by hundreds of their peers sitting in bleachers, watching television monitors to get a good view of the care provided to mock trauma victims in a complex scenario.

The winner will be announced during an awards banquet on Tuesday.

Horton has been a Surry County paramedic for seven years. McMillian has been on the service since 1995. They are both instructors at Surry Community College.

“We’ve thought about competing for several years,” Horton said.

The two work on different shifts, but are good friends, so they decided to compete together this year.

“We are expecting some tough competition,” Horton said. “It’s going to be tough, because it’s competition among your peers.”

Horton and McMillian are both critical care paramedics and are on a national registry of paramedics, so if there is a natural disaster or terror attack, they can transfer to different states to bring care. Horton is also a member of the Special Enforcement Teams or S.E.T., a member of the bike team that handles special events such as the Autumn Leaves Festival and is on the Hazardous Materials or HazMat team in Surry County.

Surry County Assistant Training Coordinator with Emergency Services Hope Lineberry said Horton and McMillian did well during the competition Sunday afternoon.

Lineberry said the paramedics were faced with a mock scenario involving a residential medical problem. They had an elderly female with severe respiratory distress. Then there was a 5-year-old who accidentally overdosed on Morphine and was unresponsive. Five minutes in, they had a “distracter” walk in. He was the son of the elderly patient who was suffering with schizophrenia.

“They performed excellent, especially in front of their peers. This is a stressful environment they are under. Right now, it is anybody’s game. All of the teams performed really well. They have 10 minutes to complete the scenario. It’s going to come down to score sheet, and I think they all did really well. Hopefully they will win this year,” Lineberry said.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.