Meet the Author: The Heat Of The Moment writer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has worked her way up the ranks of the fire service.

As deputy assistant commissioner for one of the biggest brigades in the world, she makes critical calls in every kind of situation imaginable, from car crashes and explosions to terrorist attacks.

For 18 years, she’s spent her days rescuing people in their most vulnerable moments.

But bizarrely, in her own darkest hour, nobody rescued Sabrina. She had to save herself.

Sabrina, 36, lost her father to a brain tumour when she was just nine years old.

His death sent her mother on a downward spiral of mental illness and it made for a volatile situation.

Aged just 15, she left home and ended up sleeping rough and selling copies of the Big Issue to make enough money to survive, all while completing her GCSEs.

Three years later, Sabrina signed up with the fire service.

She loves her job, but admits there have been some scary moments. Once, she rushed to a scene of a badly injured crew member.

Mike, now her husband, was a member of the four-man team.

Relieved to discover he was OK, Sabrina was awash with feelings of guilt because it was a colleague.

It was a defining moment. She began to research risks to firefighters – and was amazed to find that 80% of industrial accidents were caused by human error.

Sabrina signed up for a part-time doctorate in behavioural neuroscience.

She began her PhD research the day she gave birth to daughter Gabriella, now nine, and completed it while working as a firefighter.

The research led her to devise the Decision Control Process, a three-point test by which a commander can evaluate a decision before implementing it.

In 2015, it was included in the National Fire Chiefs Council’s operational guidelines.

Her first book, The Heat Of The Moment, draws on stories from the frontline of firefighting to show us what it means to be human in the face of disaster.

It looks at the kinds of dilemmas Sabrina faces daily in her job, such as who to save first – and ponders when your gut instinct should override procedure.

With high hopes of becoming an “astronaut firefighter”, it looks like Gabriella is already thinking of following in her mum’s footsteps.

“I’m a great believer that it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from, but where you want to go,” Sabrina said.

“There have been some hugely challenging moments, but this job is a vocation – it’s in my bones.

“And it has always been an absolute privilege to be trusted enough to make a difference.”

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton The Heat Of The Moment, Doubleday, £14.99