Bad Call
A Summer Job on a New York Ambulance
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Narrated by:
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Daniel Thomas May
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Written by:
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Mike Scardino
About this listen
An adrenaline-fueled read that will stay with you long after the you listen to the last sentence, Bad Call is a "compulsively readable, totally unforgettable"* memoir about working on a New York City ambulance in the 1960s. (*James Patterson)
Bad Call is Mike Scardino's visceral, fast-moving, and mordantly funny account of the summers he spent working as an "ambulance attendant" on the mean streets of late-1960s New York.
Fueled by adrenaline and Sabrett's hot dogs, young Mike spends his days speeding from one chaotic emergency to another. His adventures take him into the middle of incipient race riots, to the scene of a plane crash at JFK airport and into private lives all over Queens, where New Yorkers are suffering, and dying, in unimaginable ways. Learning on the job, Mike encounters all manner of freakish accidents (the man who drank Drano, the woman attacked by rats, the man who inflated like a balloon), meets countless unforgettable New York characters, falls in love, is nearly murdered, and gets an early and indelible education in the impermanence of life and the cruelty of chance.
Action-packed, poignant, and rich with details that bring Mike's world to technicolor life, Bad Call is a gritty portrait of a bygone era as well as a bracing reminder that, though "life itself is a fatal condition," it's worth pausing to notice the moments of beauty, hope, and everyday heroism along the way.
©2018 Mike Scardino (P)2018 Hachette AudioWhat the critics say
"In this fresh and powerful debut memoir, Scardino looks back on his summers during college in the late 1960s when he worked as a New York City hospital ambulance attendant...Scardino recounts in short chapters the many emergencies he witnessed and assisted in that showed him 'the entire catalog of horrifying things that can happen to a human body.' From accidental deaths to suicides, Scardino writes with the detail of a crime reporter...Scardino's unsparing memoir offers an empathetic look at human pain and suffering." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)