Book Review of
American Sirens

Lynn's Review

American Sirens by Kevin Hazzard is a nonfiction book that was published in 2022. 

I feel like American Sirens is one of those books that didn’t get the attention that it deserved. This is an incredible story of the man who invented CPR and the first paramedics in America. 

Peter Safar was born in Vienna in 1924. He was the son of two doctors. He also survived the Nazi invasion of Austria. He completed medical school after WWII and struggled to make it in a country broken by the war. 

He came to America in 1949 for a surgical fellowship at Yale hoping for a better life. Through a course of events and the death of his daughter, he was motivated to change emergency medicine. 

He not only invented CPR he took a group of men from a crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and helped them become America’s first paramedics. 

This group of men, looking for a better life and a way to support their families, helped change emergency medicine.  

Dr. Safer and this group of men were not appreciated as they should have been, but the life-saving techniques they put into practice continue to save lives today. 

I loved this book and read it in just a couple of days. I could not put it down. I told my husband and daughter who work in the medical field that they had to read it. I had not idea that CPR and modern-day paramedics were not much older than I am. 

I think this is a book anyone who loves nonfiction will enjoy, but I think it is especially great for anyone who works in the medical field.