Life-or-death experiences were once routine for Bruce Zamelsky.

The retired firefighter and paramedic now living in LaGrange has climbed out of burning buildings and rescued people ranging from little babies to senior citizens during a career lasting more than 20 years.

Documenting the emotional highs and lows of Zamelsky’s career in his book, “Memoirs of a Firefighter/ Paramedic,” proved to be therapeutic.

Zamelsky will hold a book signing from 1 to 3 p.m. April 18 at the Book Seller at 127 Commerce Ave. for the store’s grand opening.

His 93-page autobiographical piece details his life full of traumatic experiences.

“The emotional roller coaster that people in this field of work go through is off the wall,” Zamelsky said. “This book was written in plain English to let people who aspire to work in this field know what to expect and to assure people who are currently in the field to know that what they are feeling is normal. Also, this book has been very therapeutic for myself.”

One incident that stands out in Zamelsky’s mind is when he responded to an elderly man on the verge of cardiac arrest in 1987. After arriving to treat the man, Zamelsky received a call about a woman with her 2-year-old daughter who was choking en route to a hospital. The man told Zamelsky to leave him and treat the baby instead. Zamelsky first made the man’s wife promise to drive him to the emergency room as he felt certain a heart attack would ensue. He then left and cut the woman’s vehicle off and saved her daughter. Later at the ER, Zamelsky encountered the elderly man and his wife. The doctor said the man would have died from a heart attack had his wife not taken him in for treatment, Zamelsky said.

“I’d saved two lives and should have felt great, but I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t know how to handle what I was feeling. It was at that point I knew I was near the end of my career in the street - it had taken its toll.”

Zamelsky’s career took him took him to Florida, Georgia and New York City before his retirement in 2003.

He began his public-safety career as a volunteer fire department in Long Branch, N.J., in 1972. Zamelsky later moved to Florida and went to work for a paid department in Palm Beach County. While in Florida, he trained and was certified as an emergency medical technician and paramedic.

In 1978, Zamelsky moved to Georgia, where he worked for the Elbert County emergency medical service for a year before taking a job with Madison County EMS while still working as a volunteer firefighter.

“When I first volunteered as a firefighter, they told me, ‘If you don’t think you can take the heat, then you better go ahead and get out of the kitchen,’” Zamelsky recalled. “That mind be an old cliche, but in this profession it’s very true.”

After a few years in Florida, Zamelsky then took a job as an instructor at the Georgia Fire Academy in Forsyth, where he worked for four years before moving to New York City, where he served as the assistant director of health and safety for New York EMS for three years.

During his tenure in the New York, the city’s EMS and fire department merged, and Zamelsky worked as the department’s acting coordinator for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration before two unrelated on-the-job auto accidents forced him into an early retirement in 2001.

Zamelsky began writing his book in 1993 but discontinued it until 2008 for various reasons.

He moved to LaGrange in May 2003.

“I have a good friend who has lived here for a while and I have always wanted to live in Georgia again,” Zamelsky said. “Also, I fell in love with West Point Lake when I first visited my friend here. You can’t beat this lake when it comes to bass fishing. It’s one of the best spots in the country. I love it here.”

Kenneth Thompson can be reached at kethompson@ lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 228.