Darkmistress's Full Review: Janice Hudson - Trauma Junkie: Memoirs of an Emerg...
Trauma Junkie appeared like magic in my work space with a note on it that said "Are you a …?" It’s all part of Ruin13’s plot to kill me in an avalanche of books to read. Every time she finds a book that I might be interested in while sorting, she leaves it in my workspace and waits for me to purchase it and add it to the pile. Quite often she guesses well and there’s yet another book on the ever increasing and quite scary stack. This one didn’t languish for too long unread.
And the answer to the question? No, I’m not a trauma junkie. Groupie maybe. I am constantly amazed that people spend their lives training and waiting to wade into someone else’s disaster. I have been known to drop everything and render aid when something happens right in front of me, but given a moment to think and I freeze. Terrible in a crisis, can barely see, don’t like being dirty. No I won’t be volunteering to fight forest fires or drive ambulances any time soon.
However, I will cheerfully get most of my news from Firehouse.com and will hunt through the internet looking for EMT ‘funny’ stories. And that fact makes this book right up my alley.
Janice Hudson was a flight nurse for CalStar sometime in the late 80’s to the early 90’s. For a nurse she makes a pretty good writer. Everything is clear, understandable and at times quite funny. But let me explain ‘funny’ in EMT. People who have car accidents because they were engaged in oral sex? That’s funny. People who flip their cars, are unharmed, but end up with pistachio salad all over the inside the vehicle? That’s really funny. People who commit suicide by train? Not really funny unless the body parts do something really cool. However, chances are the mess itself will be interesting. It just can’t be tragic all the time. And if it isn’t tragic, it’s probably going to be funny.
So if you have a weak stomach or might be bothered by the idea that two ducks getting sucked through an engine is funny, maybe you shouldn’t pick this up.
We have a fair dose of uplifting too. My favorite was the Incredible Jim. Jim ended up pinned under the engine of his semi for hours while they tried to dig him out. When he walked up to the author six months after the accident she didn’t recognize him without the blood or the oxygen mask covering his face. He was never supposed to walk again. And then there was the accident they found because they couldn’t find the accident they’d been dispatched to. That one’s a bonus, funny and uplifting.
And the truly tragic? Oh, we have that in spades. Like the two kids who died because their drunk father dragged them out of bed for a drive. (He has a good reason to drink now, having murdered his entire family. He killed his wife on impact.) Or the day they were called to a forest fire to transport an injured firefighter and by the time they got there he had died "but we’re got another one en route. Oh wait, he died too." They were there all day waiting for injured firefighters who never made it.
So if you want to continue believing that what they show on TV is as tragic as it gets, maybe you shouldn’t pick this up either.
I, however, am drawn to these stories. I think it was all the early training with Stephen King. Unfortunately, these stories are all true. The names may have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty as sin in reference to the father above) but what happened did happen. And it might also teach you a little about why you need a living will. I very nearly hauled myself out of a warm bath and trekked to the basement to inform my husband that I didn’t want any extraordinary measures taken should the subject come up after reading the account here. You might too. If you can handle the subject matter and the "humor" it’s an eye opening read.
An unusual memoir by an San Francisco emergency flight nurse who for ten years flew to the scenes of shootings, accidents, and disasters. A born story...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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