Tales from My Stethoscope: True Stories from a South African Paramedic

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Quickfox Publishing, Mar 11, 2019 - Biography & Autobiography - 168 pages
Entertaining. Touching. Shocking.Sit down and buckle up as you read these true stories of the streets from a paramedic's point of view.In Tales from my Stethoscope, Bruna, an Advanced Life Support paramedic with more than 25 years' experience, takes you behind the scenes of accidents, sudden illness, shootings and human revelry gone wrong. You'll experience the fun and excitement of Johannesburg on a Saturday night ... but you'll also go to the lonely places where old people suffer in silence and children aren't properly cared for.You'll read about running a clinic on a mine in deepest Africa and being the resident paramedic on a geo-survey ship plying the waters around the globe. You'll fly helicopters over cities praying that the patient survives, and you'll be there in the middle of farming country helping to amputate a leg caught in a harvester.If you can stomach the drama, the blood, the grief, and the quirky humour used to get through harrowing situations, you'll get to the end of these tales with a deeper understanding of the human condition and renewed admiration and gratitude for those who listen and act when we call out in distress.
 

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Contents

The Saturday Night Show
9
Becoming qualified
20
The enigma of the bystanders
39
Casualty theatre of the absurd
46
People are living there
57
The very young and the very old
75
The trauma of trauma work
101
Working in a greater team
116
Some things remain a mystery
133
Where the job can take you
144
Epilogue
168
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