Freedom House paramedics, who first were deployed in the 1960s, provided a crucial service for Pittsburgh residents. The program became a national model for emergency medical transport and care. <\/p>\n
In the 1960s, Pittsburgh, like most cities, was segregated by race. But people of all colors suffered from lack of ambulance care. Police were the ones who responded to medical emergency calls. <\/p>\n
\"Back in those days, you had to hope and pray you had nothing serious,\" recalls filmmaker and Hollywood paramedic Gene Starzenski, who grew up in Pittsburgh. \"Because basically, the only thing they did was pick you up and threw you in the back like a sack of potatoes, and they took off for the hospital. They didn't even sit in the back with you.\" <\/p>\n
Ambulances existed, but they were privatized and didn't offer emergency care or go everywhere. <\/p>\n
That changed with the start of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, the city's first mobile emergency medicine program. Starzenski tells the story in his documentary Freedom House Street Saviors. <\/p>\n
The service became the national model, but it started out by serving Pittsburgh's mostly black Hill District. Nowadays, the Hill District is famous because of its prominence in playwright August Wilson's work. In the 1960s, like many city neighborhoods, it teemed with racial unrest. <\/p>\n
Riots that erupted in the wake of the April 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left Hill District shops gutted and hundreds out of work. <\/p>\n
Freedom House provided a solution, creating jobs for the unemployed and providing a crucial service for an imploding community. <\/p>\n
Blacks were not the only Pittsburgh residents who suffered from lack of care in those days. In 1966, the city's mayor collapsed. By the time he reached the hospital in a police car, he had gone too long without oxygen; he later died. <\/p>\n
Starzenski's family also experienced the difficulties before Freedom House services existed. His grandfather suffered a fall in the early 1960s. \"When they came to the house,\" Starzenski says, \"they didn't have any equipment. My grandfather, his head was bleeding pretty bad, and the only thing they did was they asked us for a towel and they slapped a towel around my grandfather's head and they took off to the hospital.\" <\/p>\n
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How Pittsburgh's Freedom House Pioneered Paramedic Treatment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Freedom House paramedics, who first were deployed in the 1960s, provided a crucial service for Pittsburgh residents. The program became a national model for emergency medical transport and care Continue reading