A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
December 1, 2015
Have you ever wondered what it's like to cruise the streets of a dark and dangerous city, primed to respond to the calls of those in need? No, this isn't the premise of a new superhero comic but, rather, an average day in the life of an emergency medical technician or paramedic. Hazzard presents a thrilling, captivating, and sometimes grisly glimpse into what it takes to be a first responder in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. His prose is quick, witty, and fresh as he describes his 10-year journey from student to paramedic and the varying effects the long hours and high-adrenaline environment have on ambulance workers. Hazzard tells the stories of patients he has saved, patients he has lost, and patients he simply can't forget, seamlessly weaving these vignettes into his overarching personal story. This frank and morbidly funny memoir sheds light onto a sometimes forgotten area of medicine. From delivering babies to responding to cardiac-arrest calls, paramedics have seen the extremes and everything in between. Hazzard takes readers on a wild and unforgettable ride.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
November 16, 2015
Readers should fasten their seatbelts for this wild ride with former paramedic Hazzard (Sleeping Dogs) as he navigates Atlanta’s seedier side from 2004 to 2013, while tending to a memorable—and gory—array of patients who teeter between life and death. Emergency medical service is “reality distilled and boiled down to its essence,” he writes, “and unlike the general public, I’m invited.” Hazzard possesses lifesaving skills and an adrenaline-fueled bravado to match. After graduating at the top of his EMT class, he gets a job with an ambulance company staffed by a “misfit circus” of “EMS cast-offs.” He rides with partners who are driven, dedicated, and potentially dangerous, and he responds to drug overdoses, a faked suicide, and a man being devoured by a cancer he no longer wants to fight. Hazzard’s decision to finally quit a career marked by its pursuit of “life’s darker edges” comes with the realization that he’s learned numerous lifesaving tricks, but it’s not the medicine he cherishes: “I miss the sense of duty, of honor, of humor, the sense of having lost myself somewhere, somehow, in a very strange world.” Hazzard’s unblinking view of chaos is not for weak stomachs, but it’s variously raw, poetic, and profoundly hopeful. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency.