In the 1960s, someone sick or injured would have been taken to the hospital in the backseat of a cop car or by an undertaker. It wasn’t until a trailblazing group of Black men from the Hill District — known as the Freedom House Ambulance Service — started saving lives in their community that the country began to develop a system for emergency medicine.
In Freedom House’s first year, its five ambulances responded to nearly 6,000 calls and saved more than 200 lives, according to the Heinz History Center.
“Their nation placed a call for help and they answered that call.” Kevin Hazzard, author of “American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics,” tells City Cast Pittsburgh. “They were gonna answer it for their neighbors, for their mothers, but they were gonna answer it for me too and anyone else who needed it.”
Freedom House Ambulance was developed through a collaboration between the Maurice Falk Medical Fund, Freedom House Enterprises (founded by James McCoy, Jr.), and Presbyterian Hospital. And the program’s first medical director, Dr. Nancy Caroline, wrote the first textbook for paramedic care that’s still in use today.
Unfortunately, when Pittsburgh finally decided to utilize Freedom House’s model for ambulance services, it cut the organization’s funding and it dissolved.
But Pittsburgh is reviving Freedom House’s legacy. Earlier this month, Mayor Ed Gainey announced a new EMT training program, the Freedom House EMT Training, in honor of the trailblazing group who cared for their community — all during a time when a huge swath of the Hill District was razed and thousands were displaced from their homes for the development of the Civic Arena.
“Twenty-four guys from a part of town that everybody counted out, who had every reason to be bitter and angry, weren't.” Hazard says. “They were absolutely gallant every day when they showed up, and they were prepared to do their job.”
You can see rare archival images and hear stories from Hill District residents in this 30-minute documentary by WQED.
