Ambulance Man
by Brian Casey
Paperback, 226 pages
Print $18.95, eBook $9.99
Published by Alley Light Press
Publication date: January 15, 2022
Audiobook via Audible
Print ISBN: 978-1732565128
Digital ISBN: 978-1-7325651-3-5
Audio ASIN: B09P9X78F7
A behind-the-scenes ride that is sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, but always heartfelt.
Ambulance Man chronicles the memories of an earnest kid with a huge visual appetite, burdened with a learning disability that leaves him hypervigilant and ever watchful. As a grand distraction from his childhood boredom and anxiety, and with an odd attraction to disorder and chaos, he developed a savant-like skill for locating crashes and mishaps throughout small town Stillwater Minnesota by ‘siren chasing.’ Although he was intensely interested in all things emergency (police, fire, medical), it was the majestic Cadillac ambulance and the calm, lean ambulance workers, whose duties were mostly hidden that held his special reverence.
This childhood pursuit led to his training as an EMT and joining the crew at Stillwater Taxi and Ambulance Service. Casey recounts his deficit-laden learning process and unconventional entry into ambulance work in a self-deprecating and poignant way, while recounting car crashes, heart attacks, drowned kids, and the characters that made up this small-town world. The book’s tempo increases as he begins a career as a paramedic in Spokane, Washington providing the reader a ride-along with 1980s paramedics as they navigate speed and gore in the 24-hour-life of a city.
Enjoy the author’s remarkable ability to recall what he noticed and tell ambulance stories that are unforgettable. Be there to experience his realized dream of glory, tragedy, and awakening to the price he paid. Ambulance Man is the sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, but always heartfelt story of a young man’s entry into the uniquely intense and rewarding occupation of ambulance work.