11/16/2015
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. (Jan.)
A former paramedic's "thrilling, captivating" (Booklist), and mordantly funny account of a decade spent as a first responder in Atlanta saving lives and connecting with the drama and occasional beauty that lies inside catastrophe.
In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life-his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm-one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.
Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people's facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each-as he termed them-as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”
Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life's fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man's journey of self-discovery-a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.
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In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life-his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm-one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.
Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people's facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each-as he termed them-as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”
Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life's fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man's journey of self-discovery-a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.
A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
A former paramedic's "thrilling, captivating" (Booklist), and mordantly funny account of a decade spent as a first responder in Atlanta saving lives and connecting with the drama and occasional beauty that lies inside catastrophe.
In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life-his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm-one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.
Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people's facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each-as he termed them-as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”
Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life's fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man's journey of self-discovery-a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.
In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life-his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm-one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.
Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people's facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each-as he termed them-as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”
Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life's fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man's journey of self-discovery-a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170770229 |
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Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date: | 01/05/2016 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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