Lights and Sirens: The Education of a Paramedic

A true account of going through UCLA’s famed Daniel Freeman Paramedic Program—and practicing emergency medicine on the streets of Los Angeles.

Nine months of tying tourniquets and pushing new medications, of IVs, chest compressions, and defibrillator shocks—that was Kevin Grange’s initiation into emergency medicine when, at age thirty-six, he enrolled in the “Harvard of paramedic schools”: UCLA’s Daniel Freeman Paramedic Program, long considered one of the best and most intense paramedic training programs in the world.

Few jobs can match the stress, trauma, and drama that a paramedic calls a typical day at the office, and few educational settings can match the pressure and competitiveness of paramedic school. Blending months of classroom instruction with ER rotations and a grueling field internship with the Los Angeles Fire Department, UCLA’s paramedic program is like a mix of boot camp and med school. It would turn out to be the hardest thing Grange had ever done—but also the most transformational and inspiring.

An in-depth look at the trials and tragedies that paramedic students experience daily, Lights and Sirens is ultimately about the best part of humanity—people working together to help save a human life.