The Rise and Fall of Freedom House Paramedics

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The first class of Freedom House trainees went through the hospital to see real patients. After months of training, they emerge with this full spectrum education of emergency care which has never been done outside of a physician. They have to learn how to deliver babies by real to real tape. But nonetheless, they do all these things and they go through all this training.

As recently as 1965, if you had a medical emergency, the people who showed up at your door would be volunteer firefighters, police officers, or undertakers with a hearse. Today, the story of how a group of Black men from Pittsburgh changed that.

Kevin Hazzard’s book is American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics.

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