Nightcrawlers

Exposure collection

By: Rosecrans Baldwin

Narrated by: Rosecrans Baldwin

Length: 53 mins

Publisher's summary

A revealing ride-along with New England’s teenage volunteer EMTs - boys and girls pulled away from their homework to save lives when the sun goes down.

It’s a Darien, Connecticut, tradition: an emergency medical service managed by adolescents. One kid is a varsity soccer captain. There’s a future doctor, a band dork, a theater geek. Theirs is a view of town without the niceties. A drunken spouse turned violent. Lonely old people stuck in the bath. A midlife suicide. How do these kids process the sometimes shocking and violent life-and-death secrets of their community? The answer is a story of high stress and uncommon high school lives, told by a writer who spent his own youth on the night shift. Welcome to Post 53.

Rosecrans Baldwin’s Nightcrawlers is part of Exposure, a collection of six incredible and true stories of American double lives from millionaire CEOs and suburban teens to undercover investigators and scam artists - all for whom secrets are a way of life. Each piece can be listened to in a single astonished sitting.

©2019 by Rosecrans Baldwin. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Extraordinary teens saving lives in a small town

A great, quick listen about Darien, CT teens who almost exclusively run their EMS service. The author was a former EMT at that post and he reflects on his time there as well as follows up with past and current members to get their perspective and memories. I also really appreciate that he doesn't turn away from the underbelly, past and current racism, and exclusivity and exclusion that occurs there. I love this series of short investigative profiles and want to check out other works by these authors.

Excellent. Short, but perfectly descriptive.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Honestly when I saw the length I expected it to be... not that good:- I suppose. However, by the end I realized it was the perfect length, everything that needed to be said was described in perfect detail. I would definitely recommend this to other people. Of course that is with the understanding that this is just my given thought on the matter and of course other people's thoughts may differ. However I would still encourage them to try it.

Nice summary

The book did what it set out to do, expose the reader/listener to the EMS run by teens in Darien CT.
A brief look back at the authors EMS involvement in the 1990’s and current EMS ops. Also a brief history of the town itself, primarily from a socioeconomic standpoint.

Great listen!

Great writer, great reader. Fascinating topic. Can’t wait to listen to the next story in the book!

cool story

never knew about post but it was interesting to learn about and just over all interesting

Solid story

This was free from Amazon prime as part of the Exposure collection. This was a short, interesting story about Darien Connecticut using teens as part of its EMS squad. While that aspect was interesting, what I found even more intriguing was the portrayal of Darien as a "sundown" town and closed community; I would have like to hear more of that.

Stirs raw emotions for me

This book hits very close to home for me on several fronts and like the author and the other teens in his small town that went through what he describes, I too struggle with the same dilemma of sifting out the pro's & con's of "becoming an adult" at the age of 13. (This term is used only in the terms of working an adult job until 10 or sometimes until 1 am each night and all day Saturday.) This same trait carried over to 3 out of 4 of my children as well.

It didn’t change our schooling. If anything, it likely helped us be better students and helped focus us more. We all were incredibly bored, in the honors (GATE) classes, graduated early, rarely ever needed to study for a test, and did homework at lunch. It also helped each of us choose our future careers. There were many, many positive aspects of this part of our lives.

The one major drawback is we didn't have friends our age to just be normal with. To relax, go on a date, dance, learn to socialize, etc. Making matters worse our school was split. Girls went to one school and boys went to another across town. Add to this, like the book, this was predominantly a town of mostly white people. When I started asking questions I was shut down.

I don't regret what we did or the experience but I do feel we missed out on important life lessons.

This is a very thought provoking book. I enjoyed it & recommend it. 👍
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Fascinating

Inspiring story, could be a role model for rural communities around the country. Only critique is it veered into a random discussion of social class history, which was irrelevant to the program.

Very interesting

So cool. I would of loved having this in my town when I was a teen. Also I wish this story was longer

Nightcrawlers is great but short

The overall story is amazing. First starts out with late teens working as EMS in Post. Then move on to the town being known for being a “sundown” town. Then it kinda wraps up both at the end. I would want a bit longer into each side before wrapping up. Other than being too short I thought it was a great book. I’m not updated with this author do I hope there is a second book or series to this maybe.