"Freedom House Street Saviors" - Just Back from Its Exclusive Engagement at the 3 Rivers Film Festival

Los Angeles, CA, January 05, 2010 --(PR.com)-- This documentary honoring the black pioneers of emergency medicine.

In 1967 starting as an improbable poverty experiment, 26 hardcore unemployed black men and women were recruited from the inner city streets of Pittsburgh and trained to become the first paramedics in the United States. They were known as the “Freedom House” paramedics and were the pride of the Hill District. Starting from a base in Presbyterian and Mercy Hospitals, they were trained by the father of CPR, Dr. Peter Safar, to bring emergency medicine to the streets, to introduce CPR to the world, and to design today’s paramedic intensive care units. These independent pioneers functioned for eight years at the top of their field – essentially setting the national standards for emergency care.

But political winds shifted and the city decided to launch its own mobile intensive care service in 1975. There was no longer room for this upstart minority service. This engrossing documentary is a testament to these forgotten heroes.

“Freedom House Street Saviors” is told through the eyes of surviving members. We follow these black paramedics with their passionate and emotional stories, into housing projects, shooting galleries and the homes of affluent Pittsburgh, where one story involves a white heart-attack patient who refused to be touched by these black medics, but subsequently had her life saved by them.

After more than 40 years this buried story is now being told to a wider audience and the group is belatedly receiving some public acclaim for its legacy in Pittsburgh and medical history.

Gene Starzenski, the Producer, Director of “Freedom House Street Saviors” is available for interviews, along with a few surviving members of Freedom House.

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