[I] set my cardiac monitor down by the young man's head. He is lifeless, his face white with a blue tinge. I apply the defibrillator pads to his hairless chest . . . A week from today, after the young man's brain shows no signs of electrical activity, the medical staff will take the breathing tube out, and with his family gathered by his side, he will pass away at the age of twenty-three. When Peter Canning started work as a paramedic on the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, twenty-five years ago, he believed drug users were victims only of their own character flaws. Although he took care of them, he did not care for them. But as the overdoses escalated, Canning began asking his patients how they had gotten started on their perilous journeys. And while no two tales were the same, their heartrending similarities changed Canning's view and moved him to educate himself about the science of addiction. Armed with that understanding, he began his fight against the stigmatization of users. In Killing Season, we ride along with Canning through the streets of Hartford as he tells stories of opioid overdose from a street-level vantage point. A first responder to hundreds of overdoses throughout the rise of America's epidemic, Canning has seen the impact of prescription painkillers, heroin, and the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl firsthand. Bringing us into the room (or the car, or the portable toilet) with the victims of this epidemic, Canning explains how he came to favor harm reduction, which advocates for needle exchange, community naloxone, and safe-injection sites. Through the rapid-fire nature of one paramedic's view of addiction and overdose, readers will come to understand more than just the science and misguided policies behind the opioid epidemic. They'll also share in Canning's developing empathy. Stripping away the stigma of addiction through stories that are hard-hitting, poignant, sad, confessional, funny, and overall, human, Killing Season will change minds about the epidemic, help obliterate stigma, and save lives.
Peter Canning, the EMS coordinator at UConn John Dempsey Hospital, has worked for more than twenty-five years as a full-time ambulance paramedic. He is the author of Paramedic: On the Front Lines of Medicine and Rescue 471: A Paramedic's Stories.
Introduction Prologue Chapter 1. Hartford, Connecticut, 1995 Chapter 2. Park Street, 2016 Chapter 3. Antipathy Chapter 4. Empathy Chapter 5. Addiction Chapter 6. Stigma Chapter 7. Withdrawal and Relapse Chapter 8. Heartache Chapter 9. Pain Control Chapter 10. Kelly and Veronica Chapter 11. Opioid Conference Chapter 12. Harm Reduction Chapter 13. Fentanyl Chapter 14. Responder Safety Chapter 15. Family Chapter 16. Partners Chapter 17. Mental Health Chapter 18. Age Chapter 19. The War on Drugs Chapter 20. Temptation Chapter 21. Children Chapter 22. Community Naloxone Chapter 23. Safe-Injection Site Chapter 24. Cut Chapter 25. Danger Ahead Chapter 26. The Bakery Chapter 27. Call of Duty Chapter 28. Plateau Chapter 29. State Capitol Epilogue Heroin Bags of Hartford Acknowledgments Notes Index
A devastating, empathetic look at the opioid epidemic in the United States, through the eyes of a paramedic on the front lines.
Writing Killing Season required more than creativity and conscience; it took guts . . . Canning won't convince all of his colleagues that substance abusers are people first, but I think most of us who read this book will get better at our jobs and be happier doing them. * EMS World *
