FREEDOM HOUSE AMBULANCE

PITTSBURGH 1967

Beginning in 1967 Freedom House was a trailblazer of prehospital emergency care in America. Staffed with black men and women from inner-city areas of Pittsburgh, the program recruited unemployed individuals and trained them as paramedics to deliver better emergency medical care to the community. America’s previous EMS system was virtually nonexistent—medical emergencies were handled by police officers who tossed patients in paddy wagons to be rushed to hospitals or by firefighters who gave basic first aid. After studying the growing problem of car accidents, the National Academy of Sciences published the 1966 document Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society, better known in EMS as the “white paper.”

“The lack of prehospital emergency care in America became progressively worrisome as the 1950s witnessed a massive flight to the suburbs and increasing interstate travel, so the number of traffic accidents skyrocketed,” says Gene Starzenski, a paramedic, filmmaker of the documentary Freedom House: Street Saviors, and firsthand witness to the rise of Freedom House while working in the Pittsburgh healthcare system.

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https://www.emsworld.com/article/1222574/forgotten-legacy-freedom-house