Chapter 1

My EMT license was pending renewal. According to the regulations, I wasn't allowed to perform any medical rescues off-duty during this transition period.

But that day, in our neighborhood park, my neighbor’s toddler was choking on a whole grape. His little face turned from bright red to deep purple, and his cries completely cut off.

How could I care about regulations at a moment like that? I rushed over and used the Heimlich maneuver, dragging the boy back from the brink of death.

I thought I had saved a life. Instead, he immediately reported me to the board for "unlicensed and unauthorized practice."

The EMS Association fined me two thousand dollars. My company fired me, and I was blacklisted across the industry.

But Richard didn't stop there. He showed up at my doorstep with a bunch of fake medical reports, demanding fifty thousand dollars.

"Who knows if those rough chest thrusts damaged my son's internal organs? I'm just protecting my legal rights. Is there a problem with that?"

Two weeks later, his son had a severe febrile seizure in the middle of the night. The boy was shaking violently, barely breathing, on the verge of death.

Richard fell to his knees outside my apartment, banging his head against my door, begging me to just take one look at his son.

I leaned against the doorframe, pulled out my phone, and calmly dialed 91