Not the light of day

8. Bringing Out the Dead – Joe Connelly

So, this is one of very few cases where I enjoyed the movie and the book equally as much. The movie makes it easier to see the ghosts of patients past haunting Frank as he continues to be a medic in NYC on the night shift and there’s great music and some of the clear fun is represented more obviously. The book makes it easier to understand exactly how it feels. Joe Connelly has the experience to back up the novel and I don’t think Bringing Out the Dead is intended to be exactly accurate to anything but the intensity. It has the adrenaline junkie part of saving people covered and the knowledge that it comes with very disheartening failures – and it is all weirder on the night shift. The worst shit happens on the night shift. Although it’s always possible to have the worst shit happen during the day, at night everyone involved is pushing themselves to be awake at an unnatural time, whether they’re used to it or not, it’s harder to see, and the decisions made are many times blurrier. Bringing Out the Dead also takes place during a blurrier time period of even less to be done for those with no insurance… but therein is a stark reminder that perpetual low pay for paramedics and people having to go to the ER instead of being able to be regularly checked out via a universal healthcare system will always be a bad combination no matter how hard anyone involved is trying to make things work out well.

Salem does well in his night shift moral support position and has received an A-frame winter photoshoot in response. He doesn’t think this is adequate compensation.