Author: Russ Reina

ISBN 978-1-60264-565-3 (softcover)

ISBN 978-1-60264-575-2 (eBook)

192 pages

NON-FICTION: Underneath the lights and sirens beats the heart of a healer! The author rode the first wave of Mobile Intensive Care Unit Paramedics in the U.S. in the 1970's. He became a reflection of allopathic medicine's shift from hands-on patient "care" into a litigation-driven, technologically-oriented "delivery system". Like many of his peers, he morphed into a competent "Flesh Mechanic". Somewhere along the line he lost his soul.
In an at times painfully honest memoir, the author describes moments at the mid-point of his career that rocked him to his very core. Through sometimes harrowing, sometimes transcendental experience, his defenses were chipped away; forcing him to come to grips with the human being he had become and could no longer continue to be. By facing his demons, however, he came to better understand his place in humankind's battle against death; now, he found himself lending a hand in the struggles of Life.
This book is for you or anyone you love who is challenged by issues of emotional, philosophic, moral, psychic or spiritual natures while serving human beings in distress. Its purpose is to get medics of all stripes talking about their personal challenges as if they mattered!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russ Reina stumbled into ambulance work at the birth of Emergency Medical Services and found himself trying to legitimize a new profession. He agitated the systems he was in to support better their EMS workers ("Russ Reina was a burr in the backside of every Emergency Medical Services system he worked in," John Eaglesham, EMT-P, Past Chairman, California Ambulance Association). Russ burned out on the politics not long after crafting the first AFL-CIO Union affiliation with EMS workers, the California Paramedic's Association.
That led him into a quest to experience more of the healing arts, and to use EMS as a metaphor to get medics of all stripes talking about their challenges. Russ became involved in alternative modalities, including body and energy and Human Potential work, along with spiritual counseling. He lived and worked with a traditional Lakota medicine family as fire tender and lived in intentional communities. He also delved into performing arts including, writing, acting, stand-up comedy, movie making (Healer, which he wrote, a full-length film, opened the 1994 Santa Barbara International Film Festival) and music. Currently, Russ does photography, writing, counseling and workshops on the island of Maui, where he is a tour guide. (www.firetender.org)

Russ Reina

Moments in the Death of a Flesh Mechanic...a healer's rebirth