Heroes and Lies: Storytelling Tactics among Paramedics

Among paramedics, part of the working day consists of telling stories about emergency responses - rehashing the events that are the raison d'être of their profession. In the downtime between calls, the medics attempt to fit the day's events into their broader conception of their work. Among the medics in my fieldwork area, I have found a deeply cynical and self-deprecatory storytelling tradition - one that countermands the media representations of their field so neatly presented in globally popular television programmes such as Rescue 911. Rather than play into media presentations of them as silent heroes "just doin' our job," paramedics tend to present themselves in their stories as anti-heroes, always ready with a sardonic quip in even the most horrific situations. This storytelling is part of the medics' tactical resistance to the various groups with whom they come into contact on a daily basis, including managers, field supervisors, hospital personnel, firefighters, police officers, bystanders, their patients and each other. In the course of their storytelling, medics often resort to strong language. For the sake of authenticity, this has been retained in the transcripts in this article.