Life on the Line

When the author was a kid, a big white sleek ambulance squatted like a lion in the driveway next door, always ready to go, and sometimes it did, roaring down the street. Today he is a MICA Flight Paramedic with decades of varied experience in ''a life of extremes'' in an Australian ambulance service. He does shifts at base on-call, and teaches another generation of paramedics now. Loves his job.

A...