Tim Booth is shocked when his first emergency callout for someone short of breath turns out to be an adult man with a blocked nose. Far from beginner's luck, this turns out to be an omen for the rest of his paramedic career.
Between the obligatory stories of objects lodged in body cavities and grown men who can't look after themselves when their wives are away, Tim finds that the promised life-saving moments are far outweighed by the trivial, frustrating and bizarre ambulance callouts. He and his colleagues battle fatigue, abuse and burnout - treated with coffee, occasional moments of heroism, and a healthy dose of dark humour.
Told with cutting wit, pathos and disarming insight, You Called an Ambulance for What? is a comedic behind-the-sirens look at the challenges, absurdities and shocking reality of life as an Australian intensive care paramedic. Tim Booth is an intensive care paramedic who worked for six years in south-west Sydney, patching up the sickest, strangest, and silliest of patients who called 000 for all manner of trauma and triviality. Prior to his career in healthcare, Tim was a motoring journalist who worked for Top Gear Australia magazine. He continues to punish himself with the gruelling night shifts and long days that being a paramedic demands, and occasionally revisits his former life in the form of freelance journalism on the side. After surviving the worst that the COVID-19 pandemic threw at the ambulance service, Tim now works as a paramedic on the north coast of NSW. A behind-the-sirens comedic memoir of the absurdities and frustrations of life as an Australian paramedic.
