Many years ago I was asked if I wanted to be an expert witness/consultant in court cases involving paramedics. I declined. One of the reasons I declined was because I wrote a blog about being a paramedic that included descriptions of calls where things didn’t go as they do on TV (or as the public…
This is an old Christmas story I wrote years ago, that I often repost on Christamas. ***Fifteen on the Scale It’s Christmas eve. We get called to one of the local nursing homes for rib pain. The room number sounds familiar. As we wheel our stretcher through the lobby, “Good King Wencelous” plays through the…
I was one of the last people to get a cell phone. My partner Arthur had a flip phone and he used to get so angry when he had to use it to call operations because he was paying by the minute. I remember working with a young partner one day who was on her…
If you have enjoyed my blog over the years, please considered buying some of my books this Christmas, either as gifts or to read yourself. Johns Hopkins Press is holding a big sale on my book Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Font Lines of the Opioid Epidemic. Only $6.95 in hardcover. My first…
“I can’t wake him up!” The mother says as we come into the bedroom. Her voice and hands are shaking. “He was fine when I went out for groceries. Now he won’t respond.” She is crying. “Honey! Honey!” she says. Her son lies limply back on his bed, breathing only about four times a…