Mid-South Hero: Paramedic dedicates his career to well-being of children

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The chance to make a difference began more than 15 years ago for Blake Bobbitt when he started taking pre-med classes. He turned his focus to an Emergency Medical Technician class, later becoming a paramedic.

Six years on the ground landed him an opportunity to take flight as a critical care paramedic with a team of pediatric and neonatal critical care nurses and pediatric and neonatal respiratory therapists.

These teams work feverishly in very tight spaces of a helicopter to save lives and safely transport critically ill children to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

Minutes and seconds count and transporting by ambulance versus a helicopter has one big advantage.

“The big advantage of flight is that it’s fast. And, huh, those seem to be the type of things you need to get back for right now,” said Bobbitt.

With pediatrics being considered a “calling,” health care professionals like Bobbitt answered.

“And Blake has kinda dedicated his career to be a pediatric specialist,” said Paramedic Brandon Cook. “So the things that most health care providers are not comfortable with, second nature to a person like Blake. His education, his training and really his heart to take care of kids.”

Blake’s heart for the kids extends beyond critical care needs. During the pandemic, Immanuel Lutheran School lost the ability to cater hot lunches, so his wife, a teacher at the school volunteered her husband to help out. Students now call him the “Lunch Fairy”.

“The lunch fairy thing, it became a game we played,” said Bobbitt. “Uh, where I would try to deliver the first-grade lunches before they could catch me because they were at recess immediately prior to lunch. And if I could get in and get the lunches delivered before...before they got back that was the goal, and they would say ‘oh the lunch fairy has been here.’”

The things kids say.

Very fitting for this father, husband and critical care paramedic who is fully invested in the children of the Mid-South.

That’s why his son, Jesse, and the students at Immanuel Lutheran nominated him for this honor.

“Blake is a world-class patient care provider, but more than that he’s a world-class man,” said Cook.

Congratulations Blake Bobbitt! You are this month’s Mid-South Hero!

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