Book info

• Title Rapid Response
• Author Lysa Walder
• Year 2008
• Genre Memoir

A teenage boy lies on the pavement, bleeding to death from a stab wound; a distraught mom watches, in mute shock, as her daughter suffers a terrifying fatal asthma attack; a young girl is gang raped and her stricken boyfriend takes an overdose; a disturbed young man flings himself in front of a speeding train at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Few people can imagine living in a world where such situations are part of everyday life. Yet for London Ambulance Paramedic Lysa Walder, these and thousands of other emergency calls are part of a day's work. Scenes of tragedy, loss, and horror but also stories of triumph and humor, and all the results of an urgent 999 call to the biggest and busiest free ambulance service in the world. Here, she tells the inside story behind the screaming sirens and flashing blue lights of the emergency services and reveals what it's really like to work in a job that frequently brings paramedic teams face-to-face with death and destiny.

Thoughts

This is another of a growing list of “occupational memoirs” that I’ve been enjoying over the last few years. Tales from people in interesting jobs - most notably the ambulance service, and hospitals. This time it’s Lysa, who trained as a nurse but craved the excitement of the unknown and retrained as a paramedic.

The stories are nice, Lysa has a way of making them about more than just the actual events - each memory has a point, and it’s not a moan about the NHS or the way human beings can be, they’re almost more philosophical than that. It’s hard to describe, but it’s well written and I enjoyed it.

Quite short, but easy to digest and the stories are gathered into nice collections such as “relationships” and “it shouldn’t happen to a paramedic.” Some of the stories really shouldn’t!

Rating: 4 / 5