Customer Reviews

Heroic Efforts: The Emotional Culture of Search and Rescue Volunteers

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This book is great! The stories are very exciting to read and Lois writes really well - I couldn't put the book down! I've done search and rescue for years and am currenlty a professional fire fighter, and I connected to this book through many of my experiences. I also learned a lot in thinking about this stuff! She does a fantastic job talking about the interaction between rescuers and victims and families. SAR work is very emotional and it's about time someone pointed that out. Heroes can be very affected by the things they experience and they need to realize it for their own emotional health. I thought the stuff about gender was going to be male-bashing, but it wasn't. It did point out the sexism in these risk taking fields, but I thought it was a fair and balanced portrayal of our world. Two thumbs up! A must-read for any EMS worker, but entertaining and informative regardless!

This ethnography is the analysis of one woman's 6-yr involvement with a Mountain Search and Rescue Team in Colorado. I recently joined a mountain search and rescue team, and so I wanted to understand what I would face. The book details the ways the team evaluates new recruits, how those recruits become a part of the team by assuming team identities and memes. I found it very helpful in this regard. Also, the sections on the emotions that arise in rescuers, in victims, and in victim's families --and the analysis of these emotions and the responses to them-- were really insightful and useful. It is a fairly quick read. Recommended for anyone interested in understanding the culture of volunteer search and rescue teams.