{"product_id":"a-real-emergency-isbn-9780771006579","title":"A Real Emergency","description":"\u003cb\u003eIntrospective, richly layered, and surprisingly hopeful, \u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e is a love letter from a paramedic to the best and worst parts of her career.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor fifteen years, Joanna Sokol filled private notebooks with her confusion, humor, and anger toward the strange world of emergency street medicine. As her career on the ambulance progressed, she found herself taking notes on scraps of paper, the backs of gloves, and in the margins of EKG printouts. She listened to her patients’ stories, left food out for their pets, and turned off the stove under their oxtail stews. Once, she read half a poem left in a dead woman’s typewriter. She learned about the history that brought ambulances into their current role as the caretakers of society’s forgotten and spoke to her colleagues about their own experiences and perspectives. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose reflections are collected here, in a series of raw, powerful essays about the state modern healthcare. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSokol’s life as a paramedic took her to three different counties: the casinos and trailer parks of the Nevada desert, the cozy beach town of Santa Cruz, and, eventually, the crowded tenements of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. There are no clear villains or heroes in Sokol’s world, only a group of patients and medics who are doing their best in a deeply broken system.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCombining impactful research, compassionate reflections on her most memorable patients, and the strong voices of her fellow paramedics, Sokol takes readers deep into the everyday reality of 911 first responders, offering insight, empathy, and a reminder of both the power and limitations of care.\"After a decade on the frontlines of a very broken system, Joanna Sokol has let loose one hell of a memoir: compelling, shocking, funny, galling, urgent, and beautiful. The best I've read in quite some time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mary Roach, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e deserves a place among the great work memoirs. Compassionate, humourous, a flat-out fantastic book.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSmoke Gets In Your Eyes\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFrom Here to Eternity\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWill My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I would read Joanna Sokol’s grocery lists, her texts, her musings on anything. Her work is raw, poignant, and funny. She drops you into the rarely seen world of street medicine—Narcan and mending tools at the ready—in a way few other writers can. At a time when paramedics increasingly serve as safety-net bridges to care, \u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e is a gift of understanding and, ultimately, hope.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Beth Macy, author of \u003ci\u003eDopesick\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRaising Lazarus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e is a five-alarm firestorm of a book that every American must swerve over to read. Keenly observed and gorgeously composed, it is a testament to both the brutality of our medical industrial complex and the humanity of the paramedics frantically trying to save us from it. A page-turning, soul-enraging act of narrative justice that will haunt you to the core.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eStephanie Elizondo Griest, author of \u003ci\u003eAll the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hilarious, horrifying, and poetic. In \u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e, Joanna Sokol perfectly delivers the chaotic world of street medicine in all its tarnished glory. Sokol's account of fractured lives in San Francisco is both timely and riveting and is filled with moments of genuine grace.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Kevin Hazzard, author of \u003ci\u003eA Thousand Naked Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmerican Sirens\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For those of us who want our journalism unvarnished and direct, with no hint of sugar coating, this book is a pinnacle of the craft. Joanna’s journey into the heartbreaking, shocking, hilarious, inspiring and draining world of paramedic work is so unflinching and detailed it leaves you exhausted—and in awe of her and her colleagues as they strap in for their brutal day-to-day dash from one emergency to another. There’s nothing pretty about their world, but through Joanna’s eyes it is brutally, grittily elegant. Read it and learn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Kevin Fagan, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lost and The Found\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Reading Joanna Sokol's \u003ci\u003eA Real Emergency\u003c\/i\u003e often feels like hurtling down the freeway without a windshield, or riding in a helicopter with the hatch open. There's a sense of turbulence and unpredictability to it, a frantic, propulsive energy that makes for an exhilarating read. But underneath the tense, unnerving anecdotes and the people's lives hanging in the balance, Sokol also unpacks the quiet importance of paramedics in today's society, their unheralded role as nonjudgmental, supportive figures for Americans toiling on the invisible margins. There is real sincerity and compassion lying beneath Sokol's breakneck prose—and a larger point about what America chooses to pay attention to, and what it wilfully ignores and neglects.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mike Mariani, author of \u003ci\u003eWhat Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[R]evelatory…[A] mordant, sometimes stomach-churning immersion into the world of first responders dealing with ailing bodies, drug-addled minds, bean-counting bureaucracies and eventually a pandemic that pushed the system to the breaking point.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Andrew Gilbert, \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[S]ometimes poignant, sometimes absurd, and always very human.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Abigail Vân Neely, \u003ci\u003eMisson Local\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] compelling and, yes, shocking read.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Charlene Giannetti, \u003ci\u003eWomen Around Town\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Joanna shares gripping insights into the realities of 911 calls, the broken systems behind emergency medical services, and the emotional toll and camaraderie that define life in the ambulance.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Zibby Owens, \u003ci\u003eTotally Booked\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eJoanna Sokol has worked on a 911 ambulance for ten years: along the beach in Santa Cruz, in the high desert of Reno, and on the steep streets of San Francisco.  Before that, she spent time as a ski patroller, wilderness EMT, and medical stand by for raves and music festivals. She holds a paramedic license and a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz. During her time at the San Francisco Fire Department, she received an award for Clinical Excellence and served as a member of the Street Crisis Response team. Her literary work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eReader’s Digest\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEpoca\u003c\/i\u003e, and Hazlitt, and she received a Sidney Award in 2019. Born and raised in Oakland, California, Sokol currently lives in Santa Cruz with her boyfriend and a very stubborn dog.","brand":"Strange Light","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48232895906021,"sku":"NP9780771006579","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771006579.jpg?v=1767720749","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-real-emergency-isbn-9780771006579","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}