A Final Arc of Sky: A Memoir of Critical Care

A critical care and emergency flight nurse, Jennifer Culkin is no stranger to death and its dramas. Her memoir plunges the reader into chaotic scenes where she struggles to keep seriously injured patients alive while wedged against the door of an Augusta 109A helicopter. She pulls us into the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), where she works on babies born too soon, as well as into the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit), where she cares for kids seemingly too small to contain their devastating illnesses. Through these experiences, Culkin explores the overlap between her work and her private life, where her caregiving must eventually be extended to accommodate her sons, her dying mother, then her father, and finally, as she adjusts to life with multiple sclerosis, herself. In the closing chapter, Culkin writes of friends and colleagues injured or killed in helicopter crashes, calling again on her constant awareness of the fragility of life.