Paramedics save lives. Morticians bury their mistakes.A twenty-three-year veteran of emergency medical services, paramedic Matthew Sias took a detour in his career to pursue the death care business and found a complementarity between two seemingly divergent careers.Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician, is the record of some of the more memorable calls he has responded to through the … responded to through the years.
Often intense, at times gruesome, and frequently humorous, this memoir takes you from the back seat of the medic unit racing to the hospital with a trauma patient, to the brightly lit embalming room of a funeral home, and everywhere in between. Having the ability to calmly assist a person in crisis is, perhaps, one of life’s most awesome privileges.
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I don’t get into short stories, so this book was not a great choice for me. The premise caught my interest but it’s filled with very short chapters, narrating different calls the author went on as a medic. It was interesting, but not for me.
This was an unusual book and that is why I liked it.
Interesting insight into situations emergency works encounter, usual and unusual. Also a look behind the scenes of what happens to bodies at the morgue and mortuary.
Not all people would enjoy , but I enjoyed the real life situations.
This takes me back to my own paramedic residency. It is well written, true to life.
This autobiography was extremely well done and made me appreciate the efforts of EMTs and what they go through with and have to deal with.
This true life book shows the reader several sides of life and death and how they intermingle. Very good read!
Interesting. Informative, I had never thought about people who fill these jobs—who shows up at accidents, what they have to do, the problems they have.
Having some medical knowledge helps, so you understand some of what he is describing. This book may not appeal to everyone, some of the parts are kind of yucky, so if things bother you like that, you might not like so much. I enjoyed it very much, so did my Daughter.
Quirky book. Great stories.
A surprising must-read, for insights into the flashing lights of the ambulance and under the coffin lid. The author’s vocations as an emergency medical technician and paramedic, and as a mortuary worker, bring him through situations the public sees only around the periphery. The author’s descriptions of individuals he contacts professionally are interesting.
The author veers from present tense to past tense in a disorienting manner, but his open window into unseen but important venues of mortality makes this book worth reading. You will be reminded of this book whenever you hear an ambulance siren.
Interesting autobiography
was interesting reading the inside scoop on being a paramedic AND mortuary business.
This book gives a bird’s eye view of working with the challenged, sick, dying and dead. It’s realistic without being gruesome. Not for the faint of heart.
It was a good book. It gives insight to the professions of EMT, paramedic, investigator into deaths, and mortician.
Very interesting and informative. Good book.
Interesting and informative but it became repetitious and at times monotonous
Interesting behind the scenes look at the world of emergency medicine and funeral homes.
Interesting anecdotes from Emergency Medical Technician/Paramedic turned Medical Examiner. Pre- and post-hospitalization examples.
This book falls into a special literary niche, kind of like rubber-necking at a recent accident scene. You know it’s going to bad but you look anyway. When you see the outcome, you’re sorry you looked. If you aren’t ready for the good, the bad and the ugly of emergency and mortuary services you might want to skip this one. On the plus side, it consists of little vignettes, not really chapters per se, so you can read a few, or read a lot and move on.