Front and Center: Charlie Swearingen

Front and Center: Charlie Swearingen

Published on Monday, September 15, 2025

By: Annie Oeth, [email protected]

Photos By: Joe Ellis/UMMC Communications

Charlie Swearingen considers being a husband and father, representing the U.S. as a Paralympian and wearing the blue AirCare flight suit life's greatest honors, but this year, he added one more accolade: The Tim Hynes Award from the International College of Advanced Practice Paramedics(ICAPP).

Swearingen, a University of Mississippi Medical Center flight paramedic who serves with AirCare 3 in Columbus, received the honor at the Critical Care Transport Medicine Conference in St. Louis earlier this year.

"I'm incredibly honored," he said. "Being honored by my peers in the profession is meaningful."

Each year, ICAPP selects an exceptional paramedic who has shown leadership and paramedic professionalism. The honor also recognizes continued education for personal advancement or the advancement of others and a commitment to promoting the paramedic profession through community service, public safety education, injury and illness prevention programs, enhancements in patient care or safety of the transport environment.

Hynes was a founding member of the National Flight Paramedic Association, the predecessor to ICAPP, and served as a past president. Prior to his death, the Tim Hynes Award was known as the International Flight Paramedic of the Year Award. It was renamed to honor Hynes and his contributions to the profession.

Swearingen, a Gulfport native who now lives in Brandon, has more than two decades of flight paramedic experience, helping launch AirCare bases in Meridian and Columbus.

A former class president and student delegate for the UMMC School of Health Related Professions, Swearingen earned his paramedicine certificate in 2005 and joined the Medical Center soon after, often working in the Emergency Department.

"I saw these people wearing flight suits and how they were respected in the ED," he said. "I was asking, 'How do I get to do that?'"

Swearingen asked Donna Norris, who was AirCare's program director and director of MED-COM at UMMC.

"When I first met Charlie, I was thinking he was the typical kid," she said, "but he was hanging onto every word. He was serious."

She remembers him coming back two years later with his notes to interview for a flight paramedic position.

"I showed her the list and how each of the items were scratched out," Swearingen said. "There were seven items on that list, but if there were 20 items, I would have scratched those out, too. I wanted this, and no one was going to try harder."

She believed him, and Swearingen's career at UMMC took flight.

Born with bilateral fibular hemimelia, the absence of fibulas and ankle bones, Swearingen has used prostheses since early childhood, and grew up running and playing baseball, eventually playing for the Majors at his alma mater, Millsaps College.

After his prosthetist posted a YouTube video of him using a pair of running blades to run a 5:45-minute mile, he was contacted by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

First, Swearingen started training for track in 2010, but then he had the opportunity to practice sitting volleyball with Team USA while in Oklahoma City for a race.

"I loved it," he said. "I was then asking, 'How do I get here as soon as possible?'"

In 2016, Swearingen was living in Denver but in Jackson for a visit when the coach of the men's national sitting volleyball team called, telling him he made the 2016 Paralympic roster.

"The call was a full-circle moment," he said, "because when I got the call, I was standing in front of UMMC, and Millsaps was close by."

Swearingen competed in Rio de Janeiro with Team USA. The team came in fourth.

"I went to the Olympics for a gold medal, and there they are, right there," he said, referring to wife Margaret Swearingen, manager of clinical nutrition at Children's of Mississippi, and their daughters Isla, 3, and Avery, 9 months.

Professionally, Swearingen founded MeduPros, an education company focused on critical care transport training, offering classes such as the Vent Hero Online Course and a virtual training platform with guided patient scenarios. He's also written more than 10 books including Vent Hero: Advanced Transport Ventilator Management, ECG Hero: The ABCs of ECGs, and Swearingen's Resource and Study Guide for Critical Care Transport Clinicians.

After retiring from Paralympic training, the family moved back to Mississippi three years ago, settling in Brandon. The same year, he was named SHRP's Alumnus of the Year.

Rejoining AirCare has placed Swearingen in a community of mentors. "There are so many great people here," he said. "So many times, when talking with them, I want to just sit down and take notes."

Swearingen was a colleague and friend of Dustin Pope, base supervisor and flight nurse, Jakob Kindt, critical care paramedic, and Cal Wesolowski, a Med-Trans pilot, who died in an AirCare crash in March.

Their names are on a rubber bracelet Swearingen wears. "They go up with me every time I go," he said.

With four bases - in Jackson at the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, Columbus, Greenwood and Meridian - AirCare has the medications, equipment and expertise for a critical care setting.

"People say it's a flying ED, but it's really a flying ICU," he said.

Jeremy Benson, director of the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, said Swearingen's recent honor reflects his dedication to patient care.

"Charlie Swearingen exemplifies everything we hope for in a critical care clinician- grit, humility, excellence and an unwavering commitment to service," Benson said. "His journey from a young paramedic determined to wear the flight suit to becoming a nationally recognized leader in our field is nothing short of extraordinary. The Tim Hynes Award is a fitting recognition of not just Charlie's clinical skill, but his character, mentorship, and the impact he's had on the profession. We're proud to have him on the AirCare team and even prouder to call him one of our own."