summary
For 15 years, Steven Schrader
worked as a firefighter and an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in
Atlanta, Georgia. There, he faced the day-to-day stress created by
having to deal with nonstop human catastrophe, one moment administering
to terribly hurt accident victims, the next talking down a suicidal
person from a rooftop. Added to these difficulties were his own personal
struggles, not the least being the bias he experienced because of his
severe hearing loss. Silent Alarm presents his no-frills, stunning
account of survival in a profession with a notoriously high burn-out
rate, and the good that he did as a topnotch EMT.
Schrader makes palpable the constant tension of being the first
summoned to life-or-death situations, and he also outlines the grim
reality of being an EMT in dangerous parts of the community. “Always
wear a bulletproof vest; keep a weapon (out of sight of the supervisors,
of course); never, never stand in front of a door when knocking,” are
just a few of his rules for the street.
Despite these cautions, time and again he and his partners
plunged into danger to save children, elderly citizens, indigents,
criminals, and any other persons they found at risk. His hearing loss
occasionally hindered him, and sometimes saved him, but, mostly, as it
should, it became part of the background to the astonishing compassion
in the stories he tells.
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