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A black and white group shot of 11 folks, mostly dressed in white, posing in front of a hospital entrance and with an emergency ambulance vehicle.
(Photo: Caliguiri and Curto Family Papers and Photographs, 2019.0215, Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center. Gift of Virginia ‘Ginny’ Caliguiri.)

Freedom House Ambulance Service is founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1967

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(Photo: Caliguiri and Curto Family Papers and Photographs, 2019.0215, Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center. Gift of Virginia ‘Ginny’ Caliguiri.)

As a Black-led community response to the lack of ambulance services in Pittsburgh, this service trains African-American personnel to provide previously unheard standards of emergency medical care for patients en route to hospitals.

Freedom House staff listen in on police radio frequencies to get news of emergencies and then speed to the site of the incident, often arriving before the police.

Sometimes police officers threaten to arrest the paramedics unless they turn the response to an incident over to them. Despite this initial pushback, the service will eventually become the model for the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) that follow.