Dr. Peter Safar (1924 – 2003) was an anesthesiologist who came to the University of Pittsburgh in 1961 to develop its anesthesiology department. The decade before, he had started training lay people to give mouth-to-mouth breathing and published a book which is the basis for mass training of CPR. In Pittsburgh, he continued that work and also established the first intensive care medicine training program. In 1966, Dr. Safar was working with Presbyterian Hospital to start a high-quality ambulance service. He was introduced to Phil Hallen, who wanted to create a professional training program for people in poverty and also give Pittsburgh’s Black community more access to medical care. Dr. Safar was instrumental in designing a training program in CPR, First Aid, and emergency medical care for the Freedom House Ambulance Service.

Dr. Nancy Caroline (1944 – 2002) came to Pittsburgh in 1973 to do a Fellowship in Critical Care Medicine with Dr. Safar. She was hired as the first medical director of the Freedom House Ambulance Service in 1974.  The university received a grant from the United States Department of Transportation to create a curriculum for nation-wide emergency medical services and although the grant project was overseen by Dr. Peter Safar, much of the work was delegated to Caroline, who also served as advisor to President Gerald Ford on emergency medical services. She led the team that continued refining the paramedic training program and then published the textbook Emergency Care in the Streets, which is still used today in EMT training. Under Dr. Caroline’s leadership, the Freedom House paramedics were the first to:

• Intubate a patient in the street
• Deliver an electric shock to a patient’s heart
• Read and send an EKG while en route to the hospital
• Use Narcan to reverse an overdose

Image Credit: Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, MC531-40-6-9

The 1969 School of Medicine Hippocratean yearbook notes a new ambulance service located in the University Health Center and operated by the non-profit Freedom House Enterprise. It’s goals are to train and employ disadvantaged area residents and provide quality emergency transportation. The article is accompanied by several photographs showing the staff, the call center, and the interior of the ambulances.