I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do it.

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

So have you ever thought your life was too routine and safe?

Maybe you've felt like you've never had the chance to test your metal and see how

it'd respond in a chaotic situation.

Would you break or would you rise to the challenge?

I think it's a common experience for many men.

Well my guest today on the podcast had those same feelings and decided to do something about it by becoming a paramedic and Atlanta Georgia.

Instantly he was thrown into a world that often goes unseen, violence, addiction and mangled bodies became a regular part of his existence.

His name is Kevin Hazard and he's the author of the book, A Thousand Naked Strangers, A Paramedics Wild Ride to the Edge and Back.

And today on the podcast Kevin gives us an inside look into the hidden world of paramedics and shares what he's learned during his 10 years of service as a paramedic about himself as well as the human condition.

A great show of fascinating when you're done make sure to check out the show notes at a.o.m.i.s slash Hazard and that's spelled H-A-Z-Z-A-R-D.

Kevin Hazard, welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thank you for having me on. It's great to be here.

So your book is called A Thousand Naked Strangers, A Paramedics Wild Ride to the Edge and Back. It's a memoir of your time as a paramedic in Atlanta.

And the backstory of how you became a paramedic is fascinating because before that you were a novelist. You had written a fiction book.

You were a newspaper reporter and then out of the blue you decide to become an EMT and that's a huge career change.

Now I figure you know someone with your background they'd probably become like a high school English teacher or something. So what drew you to become a paramedic?

Yeah, that is a huge change.

And you know it there are a few different factors that were involved in that and the first was you know and they're not in any way necessarily been related.

The first was that while I was in college, I went to school in South Carolina and lived in Charleston.

And while I was in college I had a summer job where I led jet ski tours.

...