★★★★★
Look, we’d love to stay and talk but we have to run.
There’s more where he came from.
Heartwarming, heartwrenching and heartbreaking – this book has it all.
Mike Scardino, a young pre-med college student, takes up a summer job as St. John’s Queens Hospital ambulance attendant (at the insistence of his parents). They think it will help him prepare for life as a doctor.
And wow. They were wrong.
I feel like I have a fucking gun to my head… Well, so much for that. I have to do it.
How bad could to be.
But Mike made a commitment. So he always returns to the ambulance – every college summer and holiday, he picks up extra hours and late night shifts and despite all his efforts, the job gets to him.
And soon, even the thought of returning sends creeping tendrils of dread down his back.
I was brought up to think of the human body as a beautiful thing. God’s image and likeness. How could God ever look like this.
And while he just signed up to work on the summers, he soon finds out that this kind of job that sticks with you for life.
I was enthralled. Wholly and completely.
I absolutely love books that provide a slightly morbid look on life (i.e. Working Stiff or Stiff)), and honestly, this one just takes the cake.
It ensnared me from the very first page and held me close until the last. Every call he spoke about was captivating – the injuries, the mishaps, the bodies, they all were fascinating and the way he spoke about them truly humanized the ordeal.
Scardino expresses the very real and raw emotions in such a way that it just sticks with you. There were several moments that I just felt for this young man and the horrors he experienced.
What often bothers me more than seeing how people die is seeing how they live.
However, and this is absolutely essential, this book was not depressing.
It would be very easy to just list horror after horror given what Scardino faced but instead, he finds amusement in the odd moments and the little things.
I know that late at night, in the morgue, when it’s very quite, you can hear the bodies fart.
Even in the face of the most gruesome of bodies and cases, his hilariously off-kilter observations brought much-needed levity to the situation.
I’m trying to figure out how he can be alive. Blood loss or no blood loss, he still shot himself in the head, and that’s usually pretty fatal.
Overall, this one was absolutely riveting – it was gruesome, gory and surprisingly wholesome. I’m definitely recommending this one if you are looking for a in-depth view on the profession!
Nobody’s getting out of this world alive. We all live with a death sentence, so why not do whatever we want
Interested in this one from Mike Scardino? Buy it here: Amazon
With thanks to the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Miranda Reads 