Firefighter, medic and author Michael Morse bares his soul with first-person accounts from a 25-year career vividly defining the first responder's vital role as a medical professional.

EMS by Fire: The Making of a Fire Medic puts the reader at the scene "where people desperately wait, frantic, impatient, lonely, dying or dead ... the public we serve is not interested in who arrives at their emergency, as long somebody comes, preferably well trained and well equipped."

"Writing for and about firefighters and EMS personnel from the ambulance officer's seat is tricky on the good days, career suicide on the bad, and quite gratifying on the rest.

"The truth is that the ratio of misery to inspiration is greatly exaggerated in my writings, with misery beating inspiration by a 20-1 margin. Yet, it is those moments of inspiration that make the misery bearable ..."