Drawing Blood— A Paramedic Memoir

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Saving lives is consuming my life. The calls, the schedule, the hours behind the wheel all erode me. But I won’t quit. It’s a job like no other. A life like no other. It changes the body and brain. I walk with different feet. I see with different eyes. I have learned to enjoy breathing.

Being a paramedic is cool. Paramedics get to drive ambulances with lights and sirens. Traffic parts to get out of the way. Patients and their loved ones look up with hopeful eyes. Paramedics help people. They are proud.

But there are downsides: Working night and day, spending endless hours driving endless kilometres without sleep, food, or bathroom breaks. Losses that feel like failures. Passing through lives that seem like God’s dark jokes.  

Drawing Blood: A Paramedic Memoir is a powerful work of narrative non-fiction by debut author Andrew Bethune. It offers razor-sharp insight into the human cost for the paramedics who bear witness to the moments when lives begin, change, or end.

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