Author Rachel Hennick will be signing her new book Ghetto Medic, a Father in the ‘Hood, at the Fire Museum of Maryland, 11 to 2 p.m. on August 4th with her father, a retired Baltimore City firefighter and paramedic who served during the Civil Rights Era.
Rachel Hennick spent ten years documenting her father Bill Hennick’ s experiences working as a paramedic and firefighter predominantly in Baltimore’s Westside from the height of the civil rights movement to the 1990s. Her biographical memoir Ghetto Medic: A Father in the ‘Hood published by BrickHouse Books, includes previously undisclosed scenes from the race riots, the attempted assassination of Mayor Schaefer, The Beethoven Apartments’ inferno and more. In one climatic chapter, she describes the dramatic rescue effort performed by firefighters from the famed Steadman “Superhouse,” the busiest fire station in America today.
“These were my bedtime stories–that is when Dad wasn’t out protecting people and property in some of Baltimore’s poorest districts,” Rachel says. Rachel hopes that Ghetto Medic will pay tribute to her father’s life, African-American firefighter history and the historical legacy of the Westside. “My father’s heart has always been in West Baltimore. It’s where he worked, lived, slept and ate. To him, West Baltimoreans are his other family. My father and I share a dream that this book might somehow make a difference.”
