Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I have so much respect for paramedics as they don't have an easy job. This book is a great behind-the-scenes look at various calls and the history of emergency medicine.

Y’all know your girl loves a memoir! Thanks so much to Nimbus Publishing and NetGalley for a sneak peek at this one.

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When my first baby was just a few months old, I laid him on his back to change his diaper like I’d done hundreds of times already— except <i>this</i> time, he turned red and seemed not to be able to breathe.

With my more experienced mom eyes, I’m now pretty sure he just coughed kinda weird (official diagnosis), but in that terrifying moment, time froze, and I immediately called 911 in a panic as I flung him over my forearm to begin back thrusts.

The very kind 911 operator gently reassured me that because she could hear his lungs belting at full blast, he didn’t seem to be choking (a point I conceded), but she’d send an ambulance to make sure he was safe and sound.

The story doesn’t get more exciting, blessedly: he was fine, I was fine, everything was fine. I tell it, though, because when I was scared out of my mind and needed help, two calm and competent paramedics showed up ready to take on whatever we needed. Then, after they left us with a seal of good health, they went to go help someone else.

Humans can be awesome.

Paramedics never know what the next call will bring, and they answer it anyway. <i>Drawing Blood</i> isn’t a book of author Andrew Bethune’s most dire or sensational emergency calls. Instead, his most poignant memories often spotlight the suffering on the periphery: The paramedic performs CPR on the elderly man who just had a heart attack, and his wife, now on the precipice of widowhood, watches desperately from the sidelines.

I get the sense the wife’s face is harder to forget.

Leaning into the humanity made this book so much more compelling. I enjoyed my proverbial ambulance ride-along and would recommend this to memoir lovers, people with an interest in the health care space, or anyone grateful for a first-responder.

(Stylistically, I had one issue: I would have liked to see more variation in sentence length. The book was described as lyrical, and while I think there was a straightforward, uncluttered rhythm to it, it could feel a bit staccato and distant at times. A few edits could tighten that up!)