DAVID RHOINEY has no one. When his father drives off one morning, David is left to become the man his manic-depressive mother needs. He is five years old.

Compton, Oakland, Long Beach: no matter where they turn, fear and hunger wait. Long nights in the homeless shelter. Drive-by shootings. Strangers in overalls dragging his mother away. As his world collapses, David loses hope. No one is coming to save him. But he can save himself.

When basketball throws him a lifeline, David grabs it. So begins an unlikely journey, one that carries him from living in a Volkswagen Jetta onto the courts of Division I, through the halls of the Naval Academy, into the corridors of national intelligence, and under the watchtowers of Guantánamo Bay. At last, scalpel in hand, David reaches the operating room, where he can finally become the man his family needs. But at what cost? And is he too late?

In this unconventional true story, Ed William takes you inside David's life. You will see what he saw, hear what he heard, feel what he felt. No One's Coming to Save You is a gritty portrait of poverty and the promise of reinvention in America—a testament to what it takes to save yourself.