Into the Breach: A Year of Life and Death with EMS [Hardcover]

J. A. Karam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

Into the Breach is the true story of paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and heavy-rescue specialists fighting to control trauma and medical emergencies in one of America's toughest and most violent cities: Newark, New Jersey. A riveting account that hauls readers on a first-hand tour of street medicine today, Into the Breach shows what really happens inside an ambulance and some of the diverse and bizarre places EMS workers tread.

Through authentic accounts, every facet of emergency care is on display-from the first 911 call to patient discharge or death, including an exclusive look at what is perhaps the biggest decontamination operation ever conducted, which crews performed for victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

A hybrid profession that blends public safety and public health, EMS attracts careerists and volunteers from all sectors of society-from Boy Scouts and housewives to Fortune 500 vice presidents and work-fare recipients. The men and women that make up the Newark EMS graveyard shift, one of the busiest, full-time teams in the nation, are quintessential EMS workers: intense, irreverent, hard-working action junkies who crave autonomy and the instant gratification of solving critical problems in real time. This unflinching profile hones in on award-winning EMS workers as well as those who pollute the industry, ironically, sometimes one and the same.

Into the Breach offers an unusual opportunity to bear witness to unimaginable suffering, heroic stoicism, and the inventiveness of American EMS workers fighting to save lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Karam brings her skills as a journalist and her insider knowledge as an emergency medical technician (EMT) to this compelling look at one year in the operation of the Emergency Medical Service teams in Newark, New Jersey. The gritty urban environment presents a range of crises from gang shootings to crack-house mothers in labor, from a senseless bureaucracy to the lack of adequate equipment. Karam takes the reader along on emergency calls, detailing human dramas of violence and disorder that require a heroic response. Karam also recounts the physical and emotional demands on EMT workers, who are sometimes traumatized by their work, tend to develop an insularity that negatively affects their family relationships, and use humor to ease the tension. She details how EMT training and operations have evolved, the increasing pressure to respond to the crises wrought by the mayhem of modern urban life, and how the lack of adequate social services translates into medical emergencies. A fascinating book that tracks how urban social trends affect medical issues. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

After witnessing a car hit a bicyclist and going to the victim's aid without real knowledge of how to help, Jana Karam took a community first-aid class and became an emergency medical technician. The bicyclist's near brush with death inspired her to leave her business career behind in favor of reporting and writing, a passion she has had since childhood. She earned her M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. Into the Breach is her first book. She lives with her family in Morris Township, New Jersey.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Renaissance Books; 1st edition (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312306172
• ISBN-13: 978-0312306175
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #702,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Accurate to some extent, August 20, 2005

By 

Just a Nurse (NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into the Breach: A Year of Life and Death with EMS (Hardcover)

After reading the other reviews felt I had to write my own.

First of all this is life in Newark EMS, she showed you the worst parts, and left out the BS. Obviously an attempt to impress the reader. The writer does not understand that without the BS jobs, the men and women who are professional urban EMS providers would have no down time, no time to get away from the horror that is at times their jobs. The jobs she wrote about all happened but she didn't right the mundane that one of the other reviews mentioned.

Irreverant humor happens in all of the human services, cops joke about the bodies in a crime scene, fireman are the ones who coined the term crispy critter, doctors and nurses laugh while coding a patient. Yes it does insulate them, that is why they do it. Once again Karam neglected to write about the times that the men and women of Newark EMS held the hand of the dying patient, or broke down in tears because too many people died that week, she really didn't show the whole image of the men and women.

Yes some of the people she choose to highlight maybe aren't the most stable or healthy, maybe they drink too much, but they are in the minority. Karam spoke of a man who worked nights, and on his days off he would spend time fishing with his kids. She made him out to be abnormal in the world of Urban EMS. Again this is Karam trying to glorify being unstable because of the job. Most of the men and women who work there have stable healthy home lives. They are able to come home and turn work off, and enjoy being with their kids.

Regarding the views of University ER nurses in the books, no the nurses in the er are not uncaring unfeeling bitches. Yes many of EMS providers feel that they are. If you didn't love what you do you would not work in the ER or in the streets of Newark.

To sum it up, Karam gave you a glimpse of the job, but not a full representation.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book does not capture the reader at all!, January 6, 2004

By 

Christiana Washington (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into the Breach: A Year of Life and Death with EMS (Hardcover)

I love to read books about real-life EMT's. This book was more like a history lesson on the Emergency Medical System. Boring! I don't want the hisoriography of the entire profession, any textbook can give me that! I want a close-up look at the lives of the men and women who work in the field. This book was fairly tedious and predictable. Nothing like some of the more exciting EMS books on the market. Be sure and read "Emergency!" which is much more interesting than "Into the Breach."

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful., November 17, 2002

By 

Art Vanderlay (New York City, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into the Breach: A Year of Life and Death with EMS (Hardcover)

This is not Third Watch. Into the Breach a Year of Life and Death with EMS is a disturbing non-fiction descent into the world of the Emergency Medical Service in New Jersey. The author Jana Abrams Karam spent a year riding with New Jersey's EMS teams and her gripping stories from the streets of Newark bring to life the real and wrenching details of what it is like to be a member of the Emergency Medical Service in one of the poorest most violent cities in America. The author goes into great detail about the everyday reality of EMS where Paramedics and EMT's deal with shootings, suicides, child abuse, miscarriages, stabbings, and other horrifying scenes that are an everyday reality for the nations EMS workers. After reading this book I find Into the Breach is mandatory reading for everyone who wants to know the truth about life in the Emergency Medical Service.