Trauma Junkie
Memoirs of an Emergency Flight Nurse
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
"Trauma Junkie gives us a view over the flight nurse's shoulder from liftoff until the patient is delivered to the hospital and the agonizing minutes in between. These fascinating true stories are impossible to put down." -- James M. Betts, MD, Chief of Department of Surgery and Director of Trauma Services, Children's Hospital, Oakland
"An exciting portrayal of emergency nursing." -- Library Journal
"Fast-paced nonfiction that reads like an adventure story." -- School Library Journal
In Trauma Junkie, readers accompany veteran flight nurse Janice Hudson as she races in response to emergency calls in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her workplace is a cramped California Shock Trauma Air Rescue (CALSTAR) helicopter in which
medical personnel try to fix the human carnage wrought by shootings, accidents and natural disasters.
In this new and expanded edition, Hudson updates readers on how she and her colleagues have fared since moving on to different medical roles -- including her own battle with multiple sclerosis, which ultimately forced her to give up the job she loved.
The new Trauma Junkie also contains several previously unpublished stories, including a new addition to the lineup of "stupid human tricks" Hudson witnessed and an all-new chapter describing a call involving the most heartbreaking of patients: a child who didn't make it.
Hudson is a natural storyteller who conveys the excitement of her days with calstar -- heroic rescues, tragic deaths and the hilarious incidents that made the tension bearable -- and the deep commitment of her team to keep patients alive in the most perilous
situations.
For information on California Shock Trauma Air Rescue Ambulances Services please visit www.calstar.org
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Devotees of medical adventures will enjoy this exciting and well-written account of the 10 years the author spent as a flight nurse for CALSTAR (California Shock/Trauma Air Rescue), a helicopter ambulance service based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing on a journal she kept to help herself cope with the stress of dealing with so many critically wounded victims, Hudson describes the dramatic rescues she participated in daily. She worked 24-hour shifts with a second nurse and a pilot; crew members worked, ate and slept together and developed strong bonds based on the quick decisions they had to make to save lives and the heartbreak they sometimes shared. Many of the calls were to the sites of automobile accidents where severely injured people had to be stabilized and airlifted to the nearest trauma center. Hudson relates the story of "amazing Jim," who survived against the odds after she and her colleague worked with firefighters for hours to remove him from the wreckage of a tanker trailer. In other cases, death was unavoidable. Hudson and her crew were called to remove a five-year-old girl from a car crash caused by a parent who was driving drunk. After their patient died, the two nurses also struggled unsuccessfully to save the life of the girl's infant brother, who had been thrown from the wreckage. Despite such sad moments, Hudson, who now works as a nurse anesthetist, has fond memories of her former life on the edge, and she shares them vividly with readers. Color photos.
