RIDING THE LIGHTNING

A ride-along adventure with a seasoned paramedic through some of New York City’s darker days.

A veteran lieutenant paramedic with the New York Fire Department, one of the country’s largest and busiest, Almojera begins strong with an introductory story about the harrowing ravages of Covid-19 in early 2020. As the author recounts, his biggest career challenges arrived with the first wave of the virus. After the suspenseful early pages, Almojera shares the details of his middle-class Brooklyn upbringing as an intuitive student fighting the rising tide of an increasingly dysfunctional family while expressing appreciation for the seasoned mentor who ushered him into the medical response business. In the spring of 2020, drastically overwhelmed by a mounting, seemingly unstoppable Covid-19 death toll in New York City, Almojera admits the first wave of the pandemic “broke us.” Even worse were the residual grief and anxiety that ruthlessly engulfed EMS workers; suicides, resignations, and total burnout were all part of the new normal within a department already hobbled by mismanagement, undercompensation, and rampant staff turnover. The episodes and memories the author evokes form a tapestry of compassion, dedication, and suffering, ranging from bloody, grisly scenes to excruciatingly sad, inspiring, and uplifting moments with the public he serves. Almojera also writes about how the unique mixture of EMTs he has worked with, whom he calls his surrogate family, formed a safety net of mutual support and solidarity. Running alongside Almojera’s frantic work duties is a chronicle of his personal life, which remained fractured by the tragic murder of his troubled brother, Richie, and memories of his father’s clandestine extramarital affairs. Dedicated to “broken people everywhere,” this book brings the experience of an urban medical response worker into vivid focus, and aspiring EMT’s will find the narrative alternately harrowing, revealing, and invaluable.

A page-turning and reflective journey through a year in a pandemic-era metropolis.