Review: "999" by Dan Farnsworth

999 by Dan Farnsworth
Published 2020 via Simon & Schuster UK
★★★

A call comes in, and the sirens start—but the ambulances don't peel out of the station, because they're probably already on the road, coming from another job. In 999, Farnsworth describes his career in the Ambulance Service, from taking 999 calls to training to go out on calls himself.

This is a pretty straightforward medical memoir. It's more anecdotes than extended stories (good, because it means more different stories; bad, because they aren't as fleshed out—ideally, you'd have a mix), though as the book goes on Farnsworth talks more and more about mental health within the Ambulance Service and his work to bring the importance of good mental health into the spotlight. He also makes an effort to talk about all patients with respect and to talk about treating them all with respect, especially when they're on various parts of society's margins, which I appreciate—you'd be surprised by how often medical memoirs really let the writers' biases show.

A couple of quick quotations:

After Farnsworth was assaulted on the job: The following day, a police office calls to tell me that my assailant has been given a formal warning and ordered to pay me compensation: £20, to be paid in instalments. Every week for the next two years, 20p will land in my account. There's some more of that gallows humour I was talking about. (86) I highlighted this not just for the gallows humour (which...yes...it's totally absurd), but also because it's a reminder of how much the guy in question must be struggling. Needing to pay that fine in instalments of 20p, in the 21st century...? That says something about the ways people can fall through the cracks.

And this, just because it's both funny and observant: What's funny is, when I give talks in schools...they ask a lot of the same stuff as adults. Little boys, just like grown men, will ask how fast my ambulance goes (not much more than 90mph, unless you're going downhill with the wind behind you. Although I tell them it goes as fast as Lewis Hamilton's car). And they'll also want to know the worst thing I've seen. That suggests a morbid curiosity about what can go wrong with a body is inbuilt in humans. But when a little kid asks that question, I'll tell them that I once saw someone being sick. And if I really want to give them a thrill, I'll tell them that I once saw someone being sick twice. (121)