Saving Black Lives in Pittsburgh, One Call at a Time

ACLU - Few people know that paramedic ambulance services as we know them today originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1960s. And even fewer know that a group of Black men organized and founded the country’s first emergency medical service. The Pittsburgh-based group, called Freedom House, wrote a training book that still serves as the basis for EMS training to this day, and pioneered life-saving practices in the field.