Customer Reviews

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Tom Reynolds has given each of us the opportunity to see what life is like for people who drive the ambulances to medical emergencies. Granted, once he gets to the location, the "emergency" might be an upset stomach or a runny nose, but it might also be a tiny baby who has died in it's crib.

This book has no plot, no named characters, no chronology, but what it does have is a realism that can only be achieved by someone who is living these events each and every day of his career. The incidents related here are from the blog Tom Reynolds writes concerning his job with the ambulance service in a section of east London. On my Kindle this book is divided into 211 chapters with each "chapter" being devoted to a single entry of his blog. Each one is very short. They range all the way from the truly frivolous calls to those where he and his mates are unable to save the patient's life. Along the way he sometimes indulges in a little fanciful, playful writing about his job and he also vents his spleen about how the government is running the National Health Service. Also included is a lexicon of terms and abbreviations which will help the reader keep track of the various organizations and functions of the London Ambulance Service and a short note about the author, including his real name.

This is the second book utilizing information from Reynolds' blog. The first was Blood, Sweat, and Tea: Real-Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance which is also available in book or Kindle form. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to see real life situations on a daily basis through the eyes of someone who is there and keeps going back.

Prehospital care must be the same the world over. I loved this. I was a paramedic in Los Angeles for a number of years and I can tell you that the author's depiction of events on the streets of London is not much different from the silliness and drama experienced on the streets of LA.

A kind mixture of cynicsm, drama, caring and reality make this book a wonderfully accurate reflection of the trials and tribulations faced by emergency providers every day.

The chapters are bite sized chunks that make it easy to set the book down and then pick up right where you left off.

If you're worried about blood and gore, don't let that stop you from getting this one. There's not much of that kind of thing. Plenty of human observation and Tom's observations are spot-on.

Okay, quit reading my silly review and go download the book, you'll be glad you did!

This book contains lots of short stories and musings from the author's life as an EMT in London. I found some of the stories to be funny, some sad, some touching, and some to be anger-inducing. It was also interesting to get an insider look at the day to day workings of an ambulance crew. Knowing about the government hoops that they have to jump through and the people that they have to deal with makes me appreciate them a lot more.

This book was an interesting look into the life of an ambulance driver. However, I found that it quickly got old, and there were a lot of things that were repeated. There is no flow at all with this book. This book read very much like a blog, however, in book format, it should have been adjusted to know who the reader is. Once we've read the definition of why a blanket is so useful, we don't need to read the same reasoning and logic 4 more times. I understand why this is done in blog format, the book should have been edited for this.

There were many times I was forcing myself to pick up the kindle and finish this book, which is unusual for me. I'm not sure what it is, whether it's the style of writing or the subject matter, but I just didn't find myself drawn into the book or attracted to the author.

This is excerpted from the blog of a London EMS. I was up with insomnia last night, and looking for a fun, light read. This was perfect! Because this is a journal, there isn't a storyline. Just an interesting perspective on life.

This journal type book is not well written, and not satisfying. It was a kindle freebie and was worth that. Sadly the author hasn't fleshed out any incidents, hasn't provided a theme, or any depth.
I am appalled that it got through the editors. or were there any editors?

I couldn't make it through this book. Some of the incidents he related could have been powerful, could have been inspiring or uplifting or moving, but the author is not a writer. He is an EMT who writes in his journal. This is fine, but doesn't make it worthy of being published. A series of random journal entries does not equal a work of art. Good thing I downloaded it for free.

I guess I didn't read the reviews well enough. This is not so much a story as a bunch of 'diary' entries. Not impressed. He doesn't seem like he enjoys his job very much.

This book is very entertaining. It's an easy read, consisting of short stories that take you through the day to day life of the ambulance service. At first, the style the book is written threw me off a bit, but I very quickly came to enjoy the author's humor and sarcasm mixed with genuine compassion for the patients that actually need help. I thought that this book would be a little harder to follow, since the author is English (his stories are based in London), and the system is different. He surprised me...they have all the same problems that we do.

As someone who has some experience in the world of ambulances and the fire dept., I would say that this is very accurate in regards to how many drivers, medics, and EMT's think and the crap that they are put through every single day. An enjoyable book, certainly worth the Kindle price.

This book by Tom Reynolds is composed of musings about his job as an ambulance drives. It covers a long period of time and discusses the ups and dows of such work as well as those things that he really likes to those things he doesn't. A vast number of casts are discussed etc. Don't worry, no names are given or ways of identifying the other paarticipants. Some discussion of the English health system is naturally involved.

I enjoyed reading it because you could drop it at any time and pick it back up without missing anything.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"