With the release of Netflix’s new Documentary Come Hell or Highwater, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina, I thought I would revisit my experiences responding to the aftermath of the hurricane in Gulfport, Mississippi. Most of the news always centers on the devastation in New Orleans, but the coast to the east of the city was…
I worked a 12-hour shift last week and was busy. I have to think a bit to remember what I did — nothing that required going to the hospital lights and sirens. Two hot humid day triggered asthmas who got breathing treatments and solumedrol. An abd pain in a patient with dementia who felt better…
I am proud to announce our article Community-Originated Research to Identify Access Gaps in Over-the-Counter Naloxone Availability in Connecticut Pharmacies has been published in the Harm Reduction Journal. The article, which began as a school project my daughter Zoey started by surveying pharmacies in Hartford about naloxone availability, was expanded statewide and the results were…
My daughter is reading The Remains of the Day for her summer school assignment. I read the book many years ago and also saw the movie that starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, and earned 8 academy award nominations. The story is about an aging English butler, who reflects on his life and the notions…
My new book The Friends and Family Guide to the Opioid Overdose Epidemic: Including How to Recognize and Treat an Overdose is going to be released on August 26, 2025 . In 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press published my last book, Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic. It…
You’re a new firefighter-paramedic and you are not fitting in. You are quiet, reserved. You lack the natural swagger of many of your co-workers. And you like the medic part of your job more than the fire. Your district mates give you a hard time about riding in calls they say you should have downgraded…
I am going to turn 67 this month. I am the oldest active paramedic in our division. Today I read an article in the Washington Post about a 76 year old EMT who started his career at 65 and only retired from active duty this year because the physical demands of the job became too…