Whereas the Freedom House Ambulance Service was the first emergency medical service in the United States to be staffed by paramedics with medical training beyond basic first aid; Whereas, prior to the mid-1960s, ambulance service in the United States was typically provided by either the police or a local funeral home; Whereas these services offered little more than transportation and people were dying unnecessarily from treatable illnesses and injuries due to a stark lack of prehospital care; Whereas, in 1966, the Freedom House Enterprise was founded to provide economic stimulation to the people of Pittsburgh, and specifically those in the predominantly Black Hill District, where a majority of the residents fell well below the poverty line; Whereas the goal of Freedom House Enterprises was to create job training and employment opportunities for those in the area and to provide an opportunity for those deemed unemployable by the city welfare offices to train and work in the city; Whereas, in 1967, Freedom House Enterprises started an ambulance service under the supervision of Dr. Peter Safar, Dr. Dawn Benson, and Dr. Nancy Caroline; Whereas 24 Black men from the Hill District underwent training to become part of the ambulance team; Whereas this team was later expanded to include both Black men and Black women; Whereas Freedom House Ambulance Service broke medical ground by training its personnel to conduct previously unheard of standards of emergency medical care for patients en route to hospitals; Whereas the paramedic training and ambulance design standards pioneered in the Freedom House Ambulance Service would set the standard for prehospital emergency care nationally and even internationally; Whereas Freedom House Paramedic Chief John Moon was the first nonphysician to perform an endotracheal intubation in the field