On Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, Ted Barris speaks to Probus Durham West with a presentation based on his 19th book – Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire.

Lost in the Second-World-War story of the Battle of the Bulge lay an account of sacrifice and survival that took historian Ted Barris nearly a lifetime to discover. It was the story of his own father.

Throughout the winter of 1945, sergeant medic Alex Barris waged a battle night and day to save lives in the middle of the bloodiest campaign the US Army faced during the liberation of Europe. But the author’s pursuit of his father’s story revealed an even greater challenge – learning what it was that motivates military medics, field surgeons, nursing sisters, stretcher-bearers, orderlies, and ambulance drivers to disregard their own well-being in order to save the lives of others on the battlefield.

Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire led Ted Barris into former fields of fire as diverse as the US Civil War battle at Fredericksburg, where the field ambulance was invented, and to the war zones of Iraq, where 21st century flight surgeons worked feverishly on wounded soldiers inside Black Hawk helicopters flying at 140 mph to the nearest desert MASH unit.

In early December 2019, it was announced that Rush to Danger was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction.

Ted Barris has published 20 non-fiction books, half of them wartime histories. His book, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, won the 2014 Libris Award as Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His book, Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany, received the 2018 NORAD Trophy from the RCAF Association. And his book, Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire, was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. In December 2022, Ted Barris was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.