Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Sandy Macken, Rockpool Publishing, $29.99.
Sandy Macken was only 15 years old when she first saw ambulance paramedics at work. She was relieved to see them helping a man who had fallen over in the gutter.
More than a decade later she was one of those ‘ambos’, restoring calm to chaos and cleaning the streets of the fallen, wounded and unwell. Paramedic shares true stories of one woman’s 20 years on the frontline and what life is like in emergency services.
Sandy resolutely says she wore the uniform like a cape, with parts of her that felt impenetrable. “At times I felt invincible, completely unaffected by life’s trauma and tragedy, hungry for more experience to better my skill set and grow my bank of work experience in the field of pre-hospital care.”
Through her father’s experience of ‘near-death unconsciousness’, she became aware that the two perspectives of terror and peace were simultaneously possible. “In every heartbreaking moment there is hope; with every death there is a dawn, and from every experience of being crushed there is opportunity to rise.”
However, what’s life really like in a job where a few seconds can mean the difference between life and death? Sandy’s candour is touching and she shares an array of up-close-and-personal accounts of racing at high speed to all kinds of real emergencies: from a car crash to an overdose, a drowning, a long fall, and even suicide.
“Paramedics are angels on earth, doing the dirtiest work there is to do. Most of their amazing work goes unnoticed, and you will never truly appreciate them for who they are unless you’re on the receiving end of their care.”
They are committed, doing their job for the love of it, for the love of life, the experience of hope and goodwill and the desire to be of service to the world.
Sandy is excited about experiencing the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. Here is an invitation you don’t often receive. “I invite you to walk with me in my shoes. If we can find the peace and hope in these places, we can find it anywhere.”
