Check out the conference summary below.
Panelists:
- Kevin Hazzard, independent journalist and author of “American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics.”
- Stephanie O’Neill, health policy reporter and independent journalist (moderator)
By Katrina Pross
In this session, Author Kevin Hazzard spoke to a group of journalists about his book that chronicles the story of the first paramedics in the United States.
The Freedom House program created the first paramedics, a group of Black men in Pittsburgh which began in the 1960s. Hazzard said the effort was started by Peter Safar, an Austrian anesthesiologist who is credited with pioneering CPR.
Hazzard said there was a major gap in medical care before paramedics existed. If someone became ill or injured and needed to be taken to the hospital, they were often driven there by someone in their car, or police were called to the scene. However, police had very limited medical training.
Safar recognized the need and trained a group to serve the predominantly Black Hill district neighborhood. From the start, the program was incredibly successful, Hazzard said.
The Freedom House paramedics were instructed to only respond to incidents in certain neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. They did not have jurisdiction in white, affluent areas. But Hazzard said that changed when a child was hit by a bus. Police arrived at the scene and immediately knew they did not have the training to help the child, and despite pushback from dispatch workers, police insisted that Freedom House respond.
“They knew who these guys were and what they were capable of. They just didn't want them there,” he said.
Hazzard emphasized that the story of the Freedom House paramedics is largely untold. Hazzard worked as a paramedic himself, and said most people in the field are not aware of how the career came to fruition. It also has minimal media coverage.
“I started researching and I thought as I was Googling this thing, like any moment, I would come across a New Yorker story,” he said. “And it didn't exist.”
He added that the city shut down the program in 1975, and members were not given recognition for their achievements which shaped the paramedic field going forward. Hazzard said this is unfortunately true for so many people of color in the United States who have championed efforts.
“It’s about as American of a story as it can be,” he said.
Katrina Pross is a criminal justice reporter with WFYI Public Media, Indiana’s chief NPR member station, and a corps member of Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. She is a 2023 AHCJ Great Lakes fellow.