More than 100 people crowded into the Hill District’s Jeron X. Grayson Community Center Tuesday night expecting to watch a documentary about history — the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, the world’s first emergency medical technicians who started saving lives in this neighborhood in 1968.
Attendees were treated to some living history, joined by some of the figures who created an extraordinary organization that influenced emergency medicine around the globe.
“I’m loving this,” said John Moon, one of the Black men who became America’s first paramedics, as reads the subtitle to the book about it, “American Sirens,” that he was autographing for Mount Washington’s Hayley Eckhardt. The book was a gift for her boyfriend, Michael Limbacher, who was delayed in arriving because he had a late call — emergency medical people will understand — for Pittsburgh’s Medic 2.
Public safety and medical workers — including Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt and Freedom House 2.0 Medical Director Emily Lovallo — were among those who watched the 30-minute documentary, “Freedom House Ambulance — The First Responders.” It premieres 8 p.m. Thursday on WQED and will be available to stream on WQED’s website after Jan. 16, as the Union Progress’ Joshua Axelrod previewed.
Most people seemed to really enjoy it on Tuesday, including Limbacher’s mother, Monroeville’s Kim Limbacher, herself a onetime EMT and now a nurse.
“I thought it was really good,” she said. “I wish it were longer.”
During a question-and-answer panel moderated by WQED’s supervising producer Minette Seate, producer Annette Banks was joined by Moon, who elaborated on how he managed to transfer to the city EMS service and rise to the rank of assistant chief before he retired in 2009.
“We were a victim of our own success,” Moon told the audience about the city’s dismantling of Freedom House in 1975, a situation clearly caused by systemic racism, Freedom House co-founder Phil Hallen said.
That’s still sad for former Freedom House Assistant Chief Mitchell J. Brown, who noted, “We cared about the people. … It didn’t matter if they were Black or white.”
Panelist George McCary III, who was one of the original Freedom House medics, beamed as he recalled their humble crew’s rigorous training, the back-breaking work of removing big people from tiny houses and the exquisite joys that included helping a woman bring a baby into the world.
One audience member asked the panelists how else they would like to see Freedom House honored, and Moon said he sees that in big things such a Black woman he mentored, Amera A. Gilchrist, now serving as Pittsburgh EMS deputy chief and only one step from the top job. He also sees it in little things, such as the Freedom House logos that appear on some city ambulances and, he hopes, eventually on all of them.
“I’m sure,” he said with a knowing smile, “the deputy chief will get that done.”
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.
