Emergency Medical Service - Firefighting and EMS - St. Louis and Memphis

Description

Author will personally autograph book to buyer and inscribe whatever message they wish.
Over 1,000 homicide scenes, 3,500 plus shootings, and countless building fires later, this dramatic account follows a paramedic and firefighter, through 34 years of two of the statistically most violent cities in the United States - St. Louis and Memphis.
This is intensely personal, but the author emphasizes that his book tells the story of all the remarkable men and women “who chose this profession.”
Feel the intensity and emotions of many emergency scenes as you learn how firefighters and paramedics emotionally deal with many of the horrific things they see and deal with.  This is not television.  It is real life drama where people's lives hang in the balance, are suddenly changed, or the efforts to save property from the devastation of fire are described.
The story opens with the eighteen-year-old author on his first call—to a high-rise housing project where a woman was about to give birth. “We had to walk up the stairs because all the elevators were broken. The dark concrete stairways with no lights smelled of stale urine in the summer heat as we made our way to the fifth floor.” He describes the gritty details and raw emotions of his daily work as well as his role in historic events—crossing paths with visiting U.S. presidents and a pope.
The author captures “the emotions, the feelings, the smells, and sights of what you see as a firefighter and a paramedic.” His goal is to give the public “a deeper appreciation for what firefighters and paramedics do.” He admits that he enjoys the rush of “fighting fire, treating a shooting victim, rescuing someone who is trapped in a car after an auto accident, rappelling off the side of a building, standing on top of a burning building.” He also emphasizes the personal dedication and sacrifices all firefighters and paramedics make daily. The working conditions take a toll; the author’s career “has left me with physical and mental scars,” including a 2001 diagnosis of Hepatitis C.
Readers will learn what it feels like to be in a burning house or see the tragic results of gangs, domestic violence, suicide, and drug wars. The descriptions of trauma are graphic, but the book also includes humorous stories of camaraderie, coworker pranks, and fire station food.