This is a dark book. Very Dark.
But oddly enough, I consider it beautiful. Beautifully written, impressionistic almost. You may want to throttle the antihero Frank, but the images and stories given throughout this dream of a book will stay with you. And that is a real tribute to the author.

Im work EMS in lawrence ma dont let people fool you this book is just a view of a very estranged charecter. Even when your burnt you dont see people like that. back in the day you did but EMS is like high school, rumours spread fast. Drinking on the job wouldnt last long and in the world of privates, believe me you dont have to fight to get fired. Aside from that and the way dispatch talks, everything else is pretty real. Mr o is a very typical person you would see in real life. you will always have the regs. anyway about the book, great book. best on ems. but i enjoyed the movie much better for small changes like i be bangin. but still good book better movie

Having spent 5 years in EMS (L.A. County), I must say I was heartily impressed by Joe Connelly's riveting look at this world through the sad eyes of his protagonist, Frank Pierce. It's hard to believe this is a first novel. BOTD is a remarkably well-crafted work. Connelly deftly balances the twin themes of humor and despair that hang like shadows over longtime first responders, and his readers are all the better for it. It may come across as a morbid or sad tale to some, but this isn't a pretension on the writer's part. Ambulance work is long consecutive strings of pain and tragedy, and while we always look for and celebrate the saves, over time we can be haunted by the losses. Make no mistake, Connelly knows exactly what he's talking about, and that's what makes this book so riveting. If you REALLY want to know what it's like to drive an ambulance, do yourself a favor and read this book.

"Bringing Out The Dead" by Joe Connelly. Random House Audio Books, 1997. Read by Campbell Scott.
Joe Connelly worked as a medic for nine years. From this experience in the Times Square area of New York City, he has developed a character, Joe Pierce, who is being consumed by his employment as an Emergency Medical Technician in the New York's Hell's Kitchen area. The description of the medical procedures used on accident victims, victims with drug overdoses and victims suffering from "mundane" problems such as cardiac arrest, are all vivid and realistic. But, beyond these often hypnotizing descriptions, the author introduces the ghosts of those whom Frank Pierce has killed ... by being too late or not being proficient. These ghosts look out windows at the main character, smile at him as he drives by in an ambulance and appear at the most awkward times. This book is more than just a repetition of medical lessons learnt.

Joe Connelly sets the action in New York's Hell's Kitchen, an area historically noted for its roughness. For example, in 1863, the so-called draft riots began in Hell's Kitchen, with more than 2,000 people killed. The last time I looked, there was no hospital on 56th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. No hospital nicknamed "Misery". There is, however, a Catholic hospital, St. Clare's, on 51st Street, between Ninth and Tenth, and I wonder if the author has used St. Clare's as the prototype for his novel. As I listened to Campbell Scott reading the book, I envisioned the ambulance going up and down the streets, and, as far as I could make out, the author has them going the correct way, for example, West towards the Hudson on 51st Street. Campbell Scott has done a good job reading this short book.

The idea of Meaning Making makes Connelly's book unique among EMS works. The book's most remarkable writing happens in but two pages: the idea of the paramedic as a recorder of human tragedy for no other purpose than to make it immortal.

The first instance is on page 101 of the hardcover edition:
"...as the years went by I grew to understand that my primary role was less about saving lives than about bearing witness."

And the final is on the last page of the book:
"I couldn't keep Rose breathing, but I'd kept her memory, sayed with her at the end a thousand times. ... Hadn't I saved them all, each wither their own room inside?"

It is the brilliance of these two passages that make BOTD such a satisfying book. BOTD is as much a confession of Frank Pierce, the main character, as it is of every EMT and Paramedic in the world.

I can think of few jobs that are so filled with tragedy and despair on a routine basis as EMS. Making meaning of so much horror, and how Pierce struggles to change his world view from that of a Lifesaver to that of the wounded witness, turns this from a work of fiction to a practical guide to avoiding PTSD in pre-hospital care.