Freedom House Ambulance Service

Prior to World War II, hospitals provided ambulance service in many large cities. With the severe manpower shortages imposed by the war effort, it became difficult for many hospitals to maintain their ambulance operations. City governments in many cases turned ambulance services over to the police or fire department. No laws required training for ambulance personnel and no training programs existed beyond basic first aid. In many fire departments, assignment to ambulance duty became an unofficial form of punishment.

The program received its initial funding from Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and the Falk Foundation.[1] The renewed emphasis on EMS services grew following the death of former Pennsylvania Governor David L. Lawrence in the back of a Pittsburgh police ambulance.[1] Phil Hallen, who at the time ran a foundation providing health care to low-income people, and Peter Safar, a doctor who also pioneered cardiopulmonary resuscitation,[2] sought to improve responses to medical emergencies—up to that point, either police or firefighters transported patients[3]—as well as create employment opportunities for African-American men in Pittsburgh. They began training men (and eventually women) to drive ambulances and serve as emergency medical technicians, who became the pioneers in the field. The first class had 25 trainees. When services began, Freedom House Ambulance Service had two donated police vehicles and took 5,800 calls, transporting more than 4,600 patients in their first year, primarily in African-American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.[4]

The data and studies conducted by Dr. Nancy Caroline and the Freedom House Paramedics shaped the ambulance standards for the Department of Transportation, as well as the EMS practices for Magen David Adom.[1]

Freedom House Ambulance Service operated until 1975, when the City of Pittsburgh launched its own professional ambulance service.[5]