No One’s Coming: Kevin Hazzard in conversation with Molly Samuel

From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history.

A Cappella Books and Georgia Center for the Book welcome Kevin Hazzard to discuss his new book No One’s Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There’s Nowhere Else to Turn. Kevin will be in conversation with Molly Samuel, a science reporter at WABE. They'll be joined on stage by Dr. Mike Flueckiger, the former medical director for Phoenix Air.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the venue. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is strongly encouraged.

This event will be in the Auditorium of Decatur Library, on the Ground Floor. Due to new security protocols, guests must enter the building through the upper level, rear doors, and then take the elevator to "G." Elevators open at 6:30. Please arrive early to ensure extra time for security.

About the Book
JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten infected. The virus kills in just over a week and they’re trapped in a hot zone with the clock ticking. If there’s going to be a rescue it has to happen now.

The very notion of getting the patients out is a radical and dangerous idea. Bringing them home might cause an outbreak of Ebola here in the US. No one’s certain if it can or should be done or if they’ll even survive the flight. In fact, the only thing anyone can agree on is that there’s just one group of people resourceful enough (or crazy enough) to pull this off. Thousands of miles away and deep in the north Georgia mountains, a phone rings at Phoenix Air. It’s the US government calling with another impossible mission.

Kevin Hazzard chronicles the ten frantic days that followed that phone call, dropping readers into the center of a first-of-its-kind international rescue. Phoenix Air, an eccentric band of engineers, pilots, and doctors with a reputation for doing things nobody else could, would become a lifeline to the world.

Terrifying, fascinating, and inspiring, No One’s Coming is a story of selfless heroes on both sides of the Atlantic who overcome the apathy and resistance of their own governments and communities, risking their lives to save others—once again proving that ordinary people are capable of overcoming the most extraordinary of problems. As contagions spring up around the world, this story of outbreaks and the people who fight them resonates more than ever.

About the Author

Kevin Hazzard is a journalist, TV writer, and former paramedic. He is the author of American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics (Hachette Books 2022). His first book, A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back, was published by Scribner in 2016. He now writes for film/TV, with work produced by Hulu, CBS, ABC and Universal. His freelance journalism has been published at 99% Invisible, the Atavist, Men’s Journal, Creative Loafing, Atlanta Magazine, and elsewhere. He is also a sought-after voice on emergency medicine. He lives in Atlanta.

About the Conversation Partner

Molly Samuel is the deputy managing editor at WABE, the NPR station in Atlanta, where she edits environment, immigration, criminal justice and other topics. Before that, she worked as a climate and environment reporter and editor for 15 years in Atlanta and the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s won awards for her reporting on coal ash, wildfires, sea level rise, and stargazing. Her literary bona fides include that her first job in high school was at Chapter 11 Books in Atlanta, and she spent one summer in college rejecting unsolicited manuscripts at a New York literary agency.