Editions

The Heat of the Moment

The Heat of the Moment

  • A Firefighter’s Stories of Life and Death Decisions

'One of the wonder women of our emergency services' Glamour

'Homeless as a teenager, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has spent the last eighteen years dealing with everything from fires to car crashes and terrorist attacks. Who better to write a book about life-or-death situations?' Guardian

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter for eighteen years. She decides which of her colleagues rush into a burning building and how they confront the blaze. She makes the call to evacuate if she believes the options have been exhausted or that the situation has escalated beyond hope.

Taking us to the very heart of firefighting, she immerses us in this extraordinary world; from scenes of devastation and crisis, through triumphs of bravery, to the quieter moments when she questions herself. Revealing her own story for the very first time, she recounts her years spent sleeping rough and her passion for a career that allows her to rescue others as she was never rescued herself.

This book is the result of everything she has learnt about how we respond in our most extreme moments.

'An inspirational woman' Good Housekeeping

Reviews

  • An inspirational memoir from an extraordinary woman. The Heat of the Moment does for the fire service what Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt did for the NHS. A humbling, jaw-dropping read which redefines what is possible in life

    Viv Groskop

  • Gripping, heart-stopping and profoundly reassuring. Thank heavens for such courage.

    Sue Black, author of All That Remains

  • A vivid reminder of the horrors that firefighters face daily - and the debt of gratitude society owes them . . . This book challenges assumptions about who firefighters are, and about what women can do.

    The Guardian

  • [One of] the wonder women of our emergency services

    Glamour

  • An immersive insight into a job which few of us could do, by a woman whose award-winning research into decision-making in the emergency services has transformed policy at a global level.

    Stylist

About the Author

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter since she was eighteen years old. She is now a Chief Fire Officer and one of the most senior female firefighters in the UK. After leaving home at fifteen and school at sixteen, she joined the fire service in Wales. While climbing the ranks, she studied at the Open University and then at Cardiff University, eventually completing a PhD in Psychology. Her subsequent research into incident command in the emergency services has not only won awards but has also influenced policy at a global level. Sabrina was recently conferred as an Honorary Fellow at Cardiff University. She lives with her husband and daughter in London.

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Related articles

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Features

How I succeeded as a female firefighter

The Heat of the Moment author Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter for 18 years – a career defined by not only life-threatening experiences, but also by male stereotypes. Here she explains how she rose the top of her astonishing career, and why we need to look beyond gender in the fire service.

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