Anna Baldwin spent years as one of Mecklenburg County's top-performing EMTs, but the attack that unfolded inside her own ambulance in West Charlotte ended her career before she was ready to leave it. This week, the woman responsible for that attack, Nicole Pizzi, walked out of a Mecklenburg County courtroom with a plea deal that includes probation rather than prison time on the local charges tied to the assault.
Baldwin responded to a call at Charlotte Douglas Airport in June 2024 involving an intoxicated woman, according to WSOC TV. That woman was Pizzi, who is from Pittsburgh. What began as a routine transport turned violent once the ambulance was moving, with Pizzi grabbing Baldwin's hair, ripping out a clump of it, and eventually flipping her over a stretcher inside the vehicle.
Baldwin's partner stopped the ambulance in West Charlotte after hearing her cries for help, the outlet reports. Pizzi threw the partner out of the ambulance, an incident that left him with a broken foot, and continued the assault on Baldwin, punching and biting her before putting her in a chokehold. Baldwin managed to press the ambulance's emergency button, and neighbors intervened after hearing the alert. Medic units arrived to restrain Pizzi 18 minutes later.
A Career Cut Short
Baldwin had won multiple awards during her time as an EMT and had planned to retire with Medic, the same account notes. Instead, she quit because of the attack. She told the station the assault changed her life, and that she now plans to help people in a safer environment by becoming a nurse — with the stated goal of becoming the best nurse she can be.
Baldwin was joined at the Mecklenburg County courthouse for Pizzi's plea hearing by active Medic coworkers who showed up to demonstrate support and to advocate for harsher penalties for assaults on first responders, according to the same account. Baldwin said she was fighting not just for herself but for her fellow first responders.
Two Justice Systems, Two Outcomes
Pizzi's violence that day did not end with Baldwin. She also assaulted another crew member on the way to the hospital, and per WSOC TV's reporting from court documents, she allegedly scratched the face of a hospital nurse after arriving at the medical facility. Local charges filed against Pizzi included counts for assaulting two EMTs and a nurse.
Under North Carolina General Statute § 14-34.6, assaulting an EMT or other emergency health provider while they carry out official duties is a Class I felony when physical injury results, according to the North Carolina General Assembly. That felony class carries statutory sentences ranging from probation to 24 months in prison depending on a defendant's criminal history, which helps explain how Pizzi's state case concluded in probation rather than incarceration. A Mecklenburg County judge approved the plea deal and told Pizzi she was responsible for one of the area's best EMTs no longer working with Medic.
Pizzi's conduct that day was not confined to the ambulance. A federal grand jury in Charlotte indicted her in March 2025 on one count of interference with flight crew members and attendants and three counts of assault by striking, beating, or wounding, stemming from her assault of flight attendants and passengers aboard an American Airlines flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte, WCNC reported. Under federal law, 49 U.S.C. § 46504 criminalizes assaulting or intimidating flight crew members and carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison along with Federal Aviation Administration civil fines of up to $37,000 per violation, according to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, because special aircraft jurisdiction gives federal courts exclusive authority over crimes committed aboard aircraft in flight. The Federal Aviation Administration maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward unruly passengers and refers in-flight assault cases directly to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution, per Tressler LLP. Pizzi was ultimately sentenced to one year in federal prison on the flight-related charges. She will serve that federal sentence before beginning probation in the local case, and will serve her probation in Pittsburgh.
A System Under Strain
The case lands amid record pressure on Charlotte-area emergency crews. Mecklenburg EMS Agency, known as Medic, responded to approximately 178,000 calls in fiscal year 2025, its highest annual call volume in seven years, according to WSOC TV's coverage of a county study into agency funding and staffing. County public safety data shows Medic's average response time for life-threatening emergencies was 8 minutes and 37 seconds in 2025, even as overall violent crime in Charlotte dropped 21% from 2024 to 2025 — a divergence that underscores how EMS workload and street-level violent crime trends don't always move together.
State lawmakers introduced the Protect First Responders Act in late 2025, proposing more than $10 million in grants to help emergency medical agencies buy ballistic body armor for EMTs and paramedics, according to EMS1. That push followed a separate incident in which an Uptown Charlotte ambulance carrying a patient was struck by gunfire in September 2025. Baldwin's case has become part of that broader conversation, as frontline responders in Mecklenburg County continue to press for outcomes that reflect the danger they say they face on the job.
Hoodline has previously reported on a Nashville ambulance attack involving a paramedic assaulted inside a moving vehicle, part of a pattern of violence against EMS crews that has drawn renewed attention this year.
