Review: "Flash Point" by Christy Warren

Flash Point by Christy Warren
Published June 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★★

I was nineteen years old, an emergency medical technician, writes Warren, working for a private ambulance company. On any given day for the next twenty-five years of my career as a paramedic and a firefighter, whenever I smelled hot asphalt, my skin sensed that woman's hair on my arm and heard her boy's screams (loc. 60*).

As an EMT, Warren loved her job—but thought she could do more. After training as a paramedic, she still loved her job—and still thought she could do more. And when she shifted to firefighting, Warren excelled, holding her own against the job's exacting standards and against her own even more exacting standards. Lessons learned in childhood proved useful: she could put each trauma she saw and experienced in a box and shut the lid, and she could move on. It worked—until it didn't.

Warren's story is not an easy read. Some of her jobs sound like absolute doozies, and although it's possible that she's pulling punches (and no matter how good or detailed a description, I don't think it's possible for a reader to fully appreciate the impact of seeing and smelling and hearing and touching people burned, people broken), it certainly doesn't feel like it. I've read my fair share of first-responder memoirs, but I can't say that I've ever thought about seeing a woman's burned skin come off on your coat while you carry her to medical help. It's worth going in to the book prepared for grisly scenes, but it's also perhaps worth noting that I don't think it's really possible for the vast majority of first responders experiencing such things to go in prepared—to go in qualified, yes, but all the reading in the world couldn't tell me how I would feel working with trauma every day, or how it would sit in my bones.

I'm reminded, reading Warren's story, of a memoir by a doctor-soldier that I read a few years ago. Of the things he talked about, reluctance to acknowledge and deal with his PTSD stands out in my memory—this conviction that to admit to having PTSD would be to admit to a weakness, even if ignoring trauma meant compounding trauma, not only for himself but for the people around him. Warren's version is much more sympathetic to the people around her, but it is a painful reminder of how we view invisible illness and invisible trauma. If a firefighter thinks she should be "strong enough" to refuse painkillers with a smashed-in leg, you can imagine how hard it must be to address the things less talked about. Here's hoping that stories like Warren's can be impetus for change—not only for more accessible, more openly acknowledged treatment for acute PTSD, but for finding ways to address trauma sooner, so that fewer responders are simply stuffing it in boxes until the boxes can hold no more.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are taken from a review copy and may not be final.