Gutter Medicine: Twenty-six Years as a Firefighter Paramedic

"My career as a firefighter/paramedic stretched from 1974 to 2000 when were inventing EMS as we went along. These are stories from those years on the street. That place I named so long ago, the other reality that exists just outside most people’s everyday lives. It is a place that seems to exist parallel to the normal workaday existence: yet it is only a car accident or cardiac away for any of us. It manifested itself in brushfires, house fires, shootings, stabbings, hangings, accidents with injuries, cardiacs, codes, drownings, and a thousand other emergencies. The street was more than a physical place. It was a place filled with excitement, fear, tragedy, horror, sadness, despair, joy, and laughter. It was a place where routine decisions could have terrible consequences: I am going to the grocery store. Or, I will get the wiring fixed next month. Where people died or were maimed. Often, it was terrible place. Or maybe it was reality. It was where all safeguards ended and our job began. There were thousands of cases, but these are the ones etched in my memory. The ones that will never go away." Roger Huder

• A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
• The Game: A Rookie Firefighter's Manual For Success
• Lights and Sirens
• Report from Engine Co. 82
• Hands of an Angel, Mind of a Demon, Heart of a Saint: True Stories from a 10 year Paramedic
• Surviving the Firehouse: A Rookies Guide to "Surviving the Firehouse and Fire Department Life"
• First In, Last Out: Leadership Lessons from the New York Fire Department
• The Last Men Out: Life on the Edge at Rescue 2 Firehouse
• Hard Roll: A Paramedic’s Perspective of Life and Death in New Orleans
• Bad Call: A Summer Job on a New York Ambulance