PWW|AG and EMS|MC Collaborate on Mock Trial – When the Call Reaches the Courtroom, Is Your Agency Ready?

“You did take Mr. Smith’s pulse, didn’t you?” the attorney asked the paramedic sitting on the witness stand.
“Yes, I did, actually.”
“Could you please show us on your patient care report where you documented that you took the pulse?”
A pause.
“I guess...I didn’t record it.”

It’s the kind of exchange no EMS provider ever wants to experience from the witness stand, but one that everyone needs to prepare for.

In early May 2026, EMS|MC joined its client, Guilford County EMS, in Greensboro, N.C., for an immersive mock trial designed by partner with PWW Advisory Group (PWW|AG) to put EMS professionals inside a scenario few ever expect to experience: defending their patient care decisions and documentation in a courtroom.

Led by PWW|AG consultants Ryan Stark, Esq. and Keri Nace, the exercise transformed a fictional EMS call into a live courtroom proceeding, complete with attorneys, witnesses, testimony, cross-examinations, evidence and a jury charged with determining whether the EMS providers and ambulance service should be held liable for a patient’s death.

The scenario may have been fictional, but the questions asked were anything but fiction, ripped directly from previous real-world court proceedings.

Did the providers adequately assess the patient? Did he have the capacity to refuse care? Were established protocols followed? Was everything that mattered documented? And could the providers defend those decisions from the witness stand?

-When an EMS Call Becomes a Court Case-
The fictional scenario centered on a 21-year-old patient who refused treatment and transport after EMS was called for a reported alcohol overdose. The patient later died.

As testimony unfolded, attorneys began dissecting the decisions made during the call.

The responding paramedic acknowledged that vital signs were either not taken or not documented. The patient care report contained limited information about the patient’s medical history, medications or the specific risks discussed with him before his refusal. The paramedic also acknowledged that medical command had not been contacted despite a regional refusal protocol requiring it.

But the defense had its own case to make. The patient had repeatedly refused treatment and transport. EMS personnel testified that he was alert and oriented and understood what was being explained to him. The defense argued that EMS providers could not simply disregard an adult patient’s autonomy because they disagreed with his decision.

Those competing arguments put attendees in a position EMS professionals rarely experience during traditional training: instead of being told what went wrong, they watched the same call be argued from both sides and had to decide for themselves.
Then the case went to the jury.

The ambulance service was evaluated under an ordinary negligence standard, while the individual EMS providers could only be found liable if their conduct rose to the level of gross negligence, which the jury was instructed involved a failure to perform a duty with reckless disregard for the consequences.

Suddenly, documentation, protocols and patient refusals weren’t concepts on a presentation slide; they were evidence.

-Putting Your Agency on Trial Before Someone Else Does-
That is what makes PWW|AG’s Mock Trial different from a traditional training session. Patient care reports become exhibits. Providers take the witness stand. Attorneys examine and cross-examine witnesses. Decisions made in minutes on the street must be explained in front of a jury. And seemingly small details can take on much greater significance. A vital sign remembered but never documented. A protocol that wasn’t followed. A conversation with a patient that never made it into the narrative.

The exercise gives providers an opportunity to see how their documentation and decisions may be viewed months or years after a call, when memories have faded and the patient care report may be the clearest record of what occurred.

-Bring the Courtroom to Your Agency-
For more than two decades, EMS organizations across the country have relied on PWW and the consultants of PWW Advisory Group for guidance on documentation, compliance, patient care and risk.

The PWW|AG Mock Trial brings those areas together in an immersive format designed to challenge providers and organizations in a way traditional education cannot.

It can expose gaps in documentation. Test whether policy aligns with practice. Challenge assumptions surrounding patient refusals. And give providers a firsthand look at what happens when their decisions are viewed through a legal lens.

Most importantly, those lessons happen while the stakes are still educational.

Because the worst time to discover a weakness in your agency’s documentation, refusal process or compliance culture is when one of your providers is sitting on the witness stand and an attorney asks: “Can you show the jury where you documented that?”

Your agency should not wait for a real courtroom to find out how your team would answer.

Reach out to PWW|AG or your EMS|MC team today to learn how we can bring this immersive training experience directly to your organization.
EMS|MC-> https://emsmc.com/demo/
PWW|AG-> https://www.pwwag.com/contact