Paramedic Patrick Baia, 23, was recently named Employee of the Year for 2025.
“It’s been a pleasure watching him grow as a provider, consistently deliver exceptional patient care, and serve as a strong mentor and role model to his BLS (Basic Life Support) partners,” said Lt. Rose Moran when announcing the award. “Congratulations, Patrick — and thank you for everything you do!”
Patrick said the award was a great honor and surprise.
“I am extremely honored and humbled by it. I was shocked when I got the email. Empress has gotten so much larger than when I started here when I was much younger, and I think it shows that I’ve earned the respect of my supervisors and coworkers. I am super honored to get the award.”
Patrick Baia is the third generation in his family to be involved with health care. His father, Daryn Baia, is a paramedic with Empress; his mother, Erin Baia, is a nurse at Westchester Medical Center, and his younger brother, Connor Baia, is an EMT with Empress. His grandfather, Dr. John Sheridan, was an emergency room doctor at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Northern Westchester Hospital as well as a telemetry doctor for the New York City Fire Department. His grandmother, Mary Sheridan, was a nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital and New Rochelle Hospital. On the other side of his family, his grandmother Lori Baia and his grandfather Jim Baia volunteered for Yorktown Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Patrick is also a third-generation volunteer for the Yorktown Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
Patrick said he didn’t originally intend to go into EMS work, but that his involvement started when he volunteered to fulfill a high school requirement.
“I joined a volunteer youth corps when I was around 14-15. When I first joined, I wasn’t necessarily interested in EMS, but I just needed to get community service for high school, and then I enjoyed it. I did it as community service — and I kind of got addicted to it — and I decided to just keep going up the chain and continue to try to get better. After that, I took my EMT at Phelps Hospital during my senior year; it was a night class. I finished in December 2019, and I started working as an EMT during COVID.”
“When I first got the certification, I had heard what was coming down the pipeline,” Patrick Baia said. “It was a very brief timeframe before it happened in New York, but I did want to be part of it and do my best to help out.”
His father said it wasn’t long before Patrick got to the frontlines.
“He was with the Yonkers Medical Evacuation Transport Unit (METU). It’s like a giant ambulance that holds up to 40 people. The Yonkers police ran it with Empress. He worked like crazy helping out, and that’s when he decided he wanted to become a paramedic. I told him I wanted him to get a degree,” Daryn Baia said.
Patrick Baia went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in paramedicine and a master’s degree in healthcare administration at the University of New Haven, where he received the school’s Presidential Scholarship. Now he is taking his critical care flight paramedic certification at Yale New Haven Hospital Center for EMS while working full-time at Empress.
“My motivation is that I’m just trying to become as educated as I can be and be a better provider. It’s more just having that knowledge of critical care and maybe doing something like that down the line. I’m always trying to improve,” Patrick Baia said.
He said the different situations encountered on the job is one of the things he likes best about the work.
“I like the variety of situations you find yourself in. I think it’s one of the few jobs where every day is truly different. It’s a medical emergency, but no patient is the same. That’s what I like about where I work. One shift, I could be in Yonkers working in a fly car, then I could be in a critical care unit in New York City, then in a fly car upstate in Putnam County. In one week, you can have three completely different environments.”
“When you’re a new medic, you start in Yonkers on an ALS ambulance, and after a few months, and you’re a cleared A medic, you can be cleared to work in a fly car. From there, you can go through the clearance process for various different systems throughout multiple counties, cities, and towns.
I primarily work in Putnam County and Yorktown in a fly car.”
When he’s not working, Patrick Baia said he enjoys skiing, golfing, and traveling.
“In the winter, I ski a lot. In the summers, I golf, and I try to travel a good amount with my friends and family. Nothing crazy with hobbies, just the average things for a 23-year-old.”
