The Freedom House Ambulance Service

FHE Timeline

• Phil Hallen, former ambulance driver, became the president of the Maurice Falk Fund in 1963.
• Hallen founded the Freedom House Ambulance Service, staffed entirely by African Americans, in 1967 to serve the African American Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• Freedom House paramedics began working in 1968 following the MLK Assasination riots.
• Freedom House paramedics contacted drug dealers about user overdoeses to provide medical assistance during a heroin surge in 1973.
• By 1974, then mayor Peter F. Flaherty denied a resquest by the Freedom House for a contract extension to provide medical care to other parts of the city. Instead, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (PEMS) was founded and staffed by non-police paramedics.
• On October 15th, 1975, the Freedom House Ambulance Service closed.
• The ambulance model used by Freedom House was set as the official US standard in 1975.

To learn more about the Freedom House Ambulance Service, you can visit blackpast.org, or simply search "Freedom House Ambulance Service" on Google or other search engine