Reviews

Book Q&As with Debora Kalb | Deborah Kalb interviews author Brian Casey about his new memoir Ambulance Man. February 20, 2022.

“An ambulance has always seemed to me to be a rolling mystery box, a sort of metaphor for life itself. In this vivid, gripping book, Casey provides a glimpse inside, showing the dignity of the work, the humanity of those who do it, and the preciousness of life itself. Highly recommended.”
— Crawford Coates, author of Mindful Responder

“Poignant, quirky and raw. Brian Casey gives readers a peek behind the curtain few are privileged to witness. Anyone who has served on an ambulance will recognize the complex and unvarnished humanity in his story. Those who have not, may feel like passers-by — staring between their splayed fingers at a gruesome car crash, but staring nonetheless.
— Brian LaCroix, EMS Chief (Ret.), past president National EMS Management Association

“Ambulance Man is a valuable and important addition to the emerging literature on the lived experience of EMTs and paramedics in America. With candor and warmth, Casey not only takes us to the small rooms and streets where an ambulance man meets and compassionately tends to people, he captures an era of ambulance work and EMS development that should not be forgotten.”
— John M. Becknell, PhD

“Lights, siren, action! Sometimes a well-told story is needed to provide clarity and insight about a particular occupation. Casey does just that in an honest and heartwarming way.”
— Shawn Yurick, correctional officer, Stillwater, MN

“Brian Casey’s Ambulance Man takes us deep inside the part of life that is filled with car crashes, drowned kids, and heart attacks. This first-person narrative begins when ambulances were fancy Cadillac station wagons and before 911 so people called your phone directly with their emergency. Brian invites the reader to see this world through his eyes. To feel what it is like to have abusive partners, kind partners, a child die in your arms, and people live who otherwise would have died. Casey lets you see up close and personal the toll the profession can take on those who dedicate their lives to helping others, and how to get through the tough stuff in style. I devoured it in one evening.”
— Mike Taigman, paramedic, assistant professor at University of California, San Francisco, author of Super-Charge Your Stress Management in the Age of COVID-19

“Have you ever watched an ambulance pass by with lights flashing and siren blaring? The whole time thinking: I wonder where they are going, what will they see when they get there, and what will they do to help the person in need? Well this book picks you up and takes you along for the ride!”
— Eric Hagle, police officer, Minneapolis, MN

“I couldn’t put it down. Ambulance Man is a compelling, sometimes humorous and frenetic series of confrontations with suffering and death — the aspects of life most of us try to avoid at all costs. It is about one man’s search for meaning in the depths of human tragedy; a discovery of the sacred within the profane.
— Kyle Keller, Psychotherapist

A Note from the Author about Writing Ambulance Man

Although public safety workers will no doubt enjoy the illumination of their work, I did not write Ambulance Man for them. Instead, it is written and intended for a broad audience. As stated earlier, the police story has been widely written and portrayed, the firefighter unceasingly praised, yet it is the ambulance EMT or paramedic who suddenly appears at the side of the sick and injured. My book allows the reader to experience the sights, sounds, strategies and raw emotions of an occupation what remains a mystery to most.

It is remarkable that I even wrote a book (my second) considering my learning disability, or as I described it in the book, my “reading problem.” Yet, it could be that my deficit, which I kept hidden, helped me notice, record, and eventually reshape experiences into engaging and original retellings. I recognize that I move about the world of words in a way that to this day I don’t fully understand.

As I state in the epilogue: My reading problem may have cleared a path for me, made a space for me to let my attention be drawn elsewhere. The things I noticed, and am able to recall in detail, were the things I valued and wished to capture. Ambulance Man was a means to re-experience them and honor the otherwise anonymous, knowing these people and events would otherwise be forever lost. I sought a dangerous path and lived to tell of it, and wrote it all down as if my life depended on it.

Since about the age of fifteen I always had a scrap of paper in my pocket on which could be found a scribbled thought or image. When I started ambulance work, I thought it important to keep a log of the basic facts of each and every call. As a career paramedic, the keeping of a log would be too laborious, so I wrote down only what seemed too valuable to be allowed to just fade away. In fact, I have always maintained a fear of allowing both the profound and the otherwise oddly-significant ordinary events to disappear without some sort of record. Interestingly, at the end of a given shift, usually nothing seemed very significant or noteworthy; however, after a day or two, the memories of certain events took on more meaning or significance, and I’d simply record what I’d seen, heard, felt or thought.

I have accumulated a massive collection of unedited writing that has spanned my ambulance work career in Stillwater, Spokane, and Minneapolis, and later, my days as a patrolman in Saint Paul. Of note, the book Ambulance Man, which spans my early days as an EMT and first two years as a career paramedic, was written over several years from memory, using the collection of writings for added detail as needed.