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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

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Speaker 2: your weekly podcast about cool people who did cool things. Uh,

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Speaker 2: not to be mistaken with our evil nemesis podcast Cool

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Speaker 2: People Who Did Cool Things, which is about cool people

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Speaker 2: who did cool stuff. That all makes sense and is

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Speaker 2: totally a bit that I'm totally going to keep. I'm

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Speaker 2: Mardur Kiljoy and I'm the host and my guest is Kavejda. Hi,

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Speaker 2: I'm back, I'm back. I know, thank you for having

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Speaker 2: me back. I missed you in these two days that

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Speaker 2: separate the recordings. I can't believe you actually made me wait.

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Speaker 2: I know in that room a lot so hard, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Really uncomfortable, but listen, I'm here to I'm just so

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Speaker 3: excited to be here. I'm not going to complain.

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Speaker 2: This is right. Yeah, I told him that he's allowed

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Speaker 2: to leave the room once we finished recording. I hope

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Speaker 2: it never ends. Yeah, that's right. And also here is Sophie.

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Speaker 2: Sophie not a doctor, but you are the audience's doctor.

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Speaker 2: Are we going to take turns each episode to be

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Speaker 2: the doctor? Medical advice would you like to provide free

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Speaker 2: of charge to our listeners.

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Speaker 1: Even if you're not leaving the house that day. You

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Speaker 1: should still wear sunscreen.

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Speaker 2: That's like skincare advice that's not bad you just in

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Speaker 2: case you mean like in case you leave, or in

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Speaker 2: case like the uview lights like penetrate your house.

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Speaker 1: I mean all of the above, preferably a mineral sunscreen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say Sophie is someone who taking skincare

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Speaker 2: advice from makes sense. It does you have I don't

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Speaker 2: know how to say this without sounding like a serial killer.

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Speaker 2: That's what I was just thinking.

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Speaker 4: Yep.

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Speaker 1: I will say it is something that I take care of. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like really, it's really really I have like a whole

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Speaker 1: cabinet that's just skincare.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I figured out how to control it, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is good for me.

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Speaker 2: It's strong work, strong work. It took me a long

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Speaker 2: time to actually get into skincare, and I'm a little

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Speaker 2: bit sad that I waited so long, but it's it's

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Speaker 2: been working.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, where sunscreen. This podcast was edited by Oh right, Ian, Nope,

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Speaker 1: what Oh we already did this, Daniel, Daniel.

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Speaker 2: Is it still so new?

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Speaker 1: We're totally keeping and we're totally keeping that in Hi

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Speaker 1: Ian and Danel.

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Speaker 2: Hian and Danel I ever wont to say hi at

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Speaker 2: least a Daniel, because Daniel's Danel. I love you, And

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Speaker 2: then everyone listening at home you have to stop saying Hi, Ian,

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Speaker 2: and you have to start saying Hi, Danel, otherwise Daniel

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Speaker 2: will know he does. It's wild.

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Speaker 1: Also if you did, if you didn't listen to our

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Speaker 1: Q and eight, they just switched around shows, they're both

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Speaker 1: they're both still they're both still our best boys, don't worry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're both doing fine. Our theme music was

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Speaker 2: still written for us by unwoman. And this is part

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Speaker 2: two in a two parter about some really I feel

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Speaker 2: like this is like such a distilled, cool people who

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Speaker 2: did cool stuff episode where it's just it's just some

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Speaker 2: people who did really cool stuff.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, do you almost feel bad about the fact that's

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Speaker 3: so good, like that they're so cool?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like I'm like, there's got to be

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Speaker 2: something terrible under the you know, I mean, like everyone has.

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Speaker 2: But no, I'm mostly just excited. I'm it's such a

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Speaker 2: why I'll just tell you this story and then you

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Speaker 2: can also be excited about it. And if for anyone

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Speaker 2: who's listening, you should go back and listen to part

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Speaker 2: one because otherwise you have no context, and what will

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Speaker 2: you do without context? It'll be like you're in school

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Speaker 2: all again, but bad. Don't be weird that the first episode.

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Speaker 2: Then come back. Don't don't be that person. Yeah, absolutely so.

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Speaker 2: Pittsburgh nineteen sixties, emergency medical services were not so great.

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Speaker 2: It was mostly cops in the city proper. And then

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Speaker 2: it'll be like a few homes in different areas because

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Speaker 2: they have the hearses, and they would be firefighters in

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Speaker 2: other areas. But like, mostly cops who are not famously

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Speaker 2: good at sanctity of life, right, even the people that

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Speaker 2: they like kind of should ostensibly care about, Like the

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Speaker 2: rich white guy we're about to talk about, who they

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Speaker 2: totally fucking murdered through medical neglect. I wasn't well, I

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Speaker 2: just I'll just tell you what happened. There was this

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Speaker 2: big deal Democrat guy in Pittsburgh. His name is David Lawrence,

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Speaker 2: and he had previously been both the mayor of Pittsburgh

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Speaker 2: and the governor of Pennsylvania one point or another. Most

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Speaker 2: history remembers David Lawrence very kindly. In nineteen ninety three,

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Speaker 2: he was ranked third in the top ten mayors in

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Speaker 2: American history. He was a working class Irish Catholic guy

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Speaker 2: who fought in World War One. He lived in Pittsburgh

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Speaker 2: during the peak of the anti Catholic era of the Klan.

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Speaker 2: So I should like him, but I don't. He was

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Speaker 2: the guy who engineered the renaissance, that urban renewal, that

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Speaker 2: just like fucked over all the black people who lived

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Speaker 2: in the ho So whatever. Anyway to late nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 2: he's not in charge of anything anymore. He's just influential.

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Speaker 2: And he is going to go and give this great,

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Speaker 2: big speech at a Democrat guy politic thing about why

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Speaker 2: Democrats rule and Republicans drool. But instead he decided to

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Speaker 2: have a heart attack on stage. Funny choice. I know

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Speaker 2: it was a bold choice. It didn't work out for

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Speaker 2: the candidate he was trying to endorse. Actually the guy loses,

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Speaker 2: But I don't think we can put that on David Lawrence.

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Speaker 2: A nurse from the audience ran to the stage and

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Speaker 2: started giving him CPR the you stand in character cove

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Speaker 2: as you discussed that you like when well, you don't

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Speaker 2: like people have heart attacks, but you get to the war. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I don't want people to be sick. I just want

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Speaker 2: to be of use. Yeah, yeah, And so a nurse

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Speaker 2: runs up and starts giving CPR, and then the ambulance

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Speaker 2: arrives and at the time ambulance and in this case

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Speaker 2: met cops. So the cops arrived shoved the nurse out

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Speaker 2: of the way, and she's like, uh, I need to

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Speaker 2: keep doing emergency breathing and they're like nah, and then

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Speaker 2: they're like running him off to the cop car. They're

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Speaker 2: using arrest vans what I called paddy wagons, And then

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Speaker 2: someone got really mad at me and they're like shoving

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Speaker 2: the nurse out of the way. She's like following, trying

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Speaker 2: to give emergency breathing because like he's not breathing, you know,

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Speaker 2: and they're like showing her off and shit, and they

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Speaker 2: throw her in the back. They throw him in the

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Speaker 2: back of the cop car and they drive off and

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Speaker 2: and no one rides in the back with him whenever

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Speaker 2: they do this, so they just like careen through the

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Speaker 2: streets with this Oh my god, this person who's unconscious

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Speaker 2: and not breathing. Yeah, just flopping around loose in the back.

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Speaker 2: So it's not good for him, and.

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Speaker 3: That's not great patient care, I can tell you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And that was actually the norm. That was actually

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Speaker 2: the norm that no one rode in the when the

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Speaker 2: cops took you, No one rode in the back with you.

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Speaker 2: How terrifying that those are your two options. You either

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Speaker 2: have the cops throwing you into.

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Speaker 3: The back of one of those arrest vans, or you

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Speaker 3: got picked up in a hearse I know where.

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Speaker 2: There's like literally still flowers in there. Yeah, like the worst. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Like I I at that point, I might be like,

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Speaker 2: leave me to die on my kitchen floor. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: like if you're just going to die anyway. Yeah. And

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Speaker 2: so this guy, it turns out, I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you knew this big medical revelation, your brain actually needs oxygen,

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Speaker 2: big if true. Yeah, his brain didn't get any because

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Speaker 2: there was no one to be an emergency breathing because.

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Speaker 3: The one person that was trying to they wouldn't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, happened to be a woman, happened to not

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Speaker 2: be a cop, like, had all kinds of things going

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Speaker 2: against her.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And when the cops taken to hospital, it's literally Peter

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Speaker 2: Saffer at the hospital door there to receive him because

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Speaker 2: they get they get a call and they're like, oh fuck,

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Speaker 2: this is a big important thing. And the doctors managed

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Speaker 2: to restart his heart, but there's no brain activity because

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Speaker 2: he had gone too long without oxygen for seventeen days.

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Speaker 2: He was medically there's two words here. One of them

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Speaker 2: was alive and one of them was dead. He was

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Speaker 2: like medically alive but biologically dead or the other way

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Speaker 2: around or something.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like he wasn't having any brain activity.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, And eventually his family removed him from life

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Speaker 2: support and he died more completely. And this was a

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Speaker 2: big deal. And Peter Saffer had been looking for ways

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Speaker 2: to improve emergency medical services, but there hadn't been the

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Speaker 2: political will for it. Also, even though he's like the

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Speaker 2: father of CPR, everywhere he goes people kind of don't

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Speaker 2: like him, and for a long time, eventually has enough

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Speaker 2: cloud that he gets away with stuff. But like in

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Speaker 2: Baltimore and he first shows up, people are like, you're

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Speaker 2: just that weird guy with an accent, you know, like

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Speaker 2: and you want to do things not the right way.

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Speaker 2: We don't really like you very much.

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Speaker 3: That seems like a common story in medicine.

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Speaker 2: I think, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. So when mister

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Speaker 2: Democrat dies, they literally called David Lawrence mister Democrat. That's

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Speaker 2: how important he was to the political machine in Pittsburgh.

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Speaker 2: He dies, and suddenly there's political will to improve emergency

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Speaker 2: medical care because it gets out no one's blaming the cops,

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Speaker 2: but it gets out that had actual proper medical care

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Speaker 2: been provided, he would have survived most likely.

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Speaker 4: Yea.

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Speaker 2: So people are like, all right, we can have ambulances

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Speaker 2: that aren't shitty. And Saffer got together with a nonprofit,

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Speaker 2: the Folk Medical Fund, which got together with Freedom House,

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Speaker 2: the people who were driving around and you know, selling

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Speaker 2: groceries and giving job training and stuff, right, And the

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Speaker 2: plan wasn't just put doctors on ambulances. It was to

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Speaker 2: put paramedics on ambulances, which is this entirely new word.

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Speaker 2: I don't think they invented it for this context, but

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Speaker 2: it's like a new word that've been floating around as

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Speaker 2: a concept. And he wanted to prove that you could

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Speaker 2: train regular folks into the job, not quickly and easily,

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Speaker 2: but reliably. Freedom House was like, we will do it

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Speaker 2: on one condition, and the ordinary people who are going

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Speaker 2: to get trained to serve the black community are going

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Speaker 2: to be black people from the black community. And Peter

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Speaker 2: Saffer was like, that is literally not a problem. I

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Speaker 2: fucking survived Nazi occupation. There's no part of me that's

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Speaker 2: excited about racism. That's fine. Yeah, later a bunch of

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Speaker 2: people were really into the racism thing, fucked the whole

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Speaker 2: thing up. But that's a while later. Yeah, that checks out.

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Speaker 2: So I'm sorry. What was Freedom House at this point?

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Speaker 2: What were they? Remind me? Like, what were they doing?

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Speaker 2: Or so they were a job training center for black

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Speaker 2: people looking to learn how to start their own businesses,

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Speaker 2: like doing like landscaping and stuff. And they were also

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Speaker 2: doing the grocery not delivery. It wasn't like a mutual

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Speaker 2: aid project. It was a break the food desert thing

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Speaker 2: where they'd drive in and drove the vans, right, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 2: And so they were basically like a method of empowerment

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Speaker 2: to the neighborhood that ended up being like the most

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Speaker 2: appropriate rough infrastructure to build out, you know. And so

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Speaker 2: all the first paramedics in the first class were men

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Speaker 2: because of sexism, and all the phone operators were and

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Speaker 2: this will shock you to hear women whoa yeah, thank

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Speaker 2: you history. At least later one of the phone operators

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Speaker 2: ends up a paramedic, which is cool. And so when

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Speaker 2: they decide to get all these people together to do

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Speaker 2: this thing, the nonprofit world, the you know, Freedom House,

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Speaker 2: and Saffer. Some cops come to the first meetings. They're like, well,

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Speaker 2: we're the we're the ambulance drivers. We should be part

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Speaker 2: of it, you know. And then the cops were like, wait,

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Speaker 2: hold on, we get paid to do ambulance ride of

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Speaker 2: death routine. We don't want black people fucking it up.

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Speaker 2: So they were out and they left the coalition immediately,

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Speaker 2: which is for the best.

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Speaker 3: I don't give a shit, but like, they would have

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Speaker 3: made I mean, they would have at least made money, right,

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Speaker 3: they may have made a little bit LEAs because someone

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Speaker 3: else is doing it, But weren't they still going to

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Speaker 3: be couldn't they still be involved if they want it

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Speaker 3: to and still be able to make money off it?

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Speaker 2: Probably they probably could have figured out a way to

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Speaker 2: do that. Yeah. Saffer was like, I can teach a

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Speaker 2: class of forty four students, and they were like, okay,

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Speaker 2: we need forty four people willing to take three hundred

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Speaker 2: hours of job training for a job that has never

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Speaker 2: existed in history. That was hard to find people who

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Speaker 2: were willing to do that. So the first class of

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Speaker 2: forty four students was a lot of them were literally

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Speaker 2: kind of off the streets, like they'd go around and

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Speaker 2: basically be practically rounded up and dragged off to go learn. Wow.

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Speaker 2: They were aged eighteen to sixty. They were high school dropouts,

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Speaker 2: they were Vietnam vets on drugs, they were a tenant workers.

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Speaker 2: They were felons with records that kept them out of

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Speaker 2: most work. They were people who were having a hard

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Speaker 2: go of it themselves. One of the recruiters who ended

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Speaker 2: up also being one of the paramedics who worked at

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Speaker 2: Freedom House, he actually ran an ambulance service, of private

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Speaker 2: ambulance service prior to that, just because the neighborhood needed it.

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Speaker 2: But it was the old school of style of ambulance service,

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Speaker 2: like call us drive you to the hospital, you know,

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Speaker 2: and they start a three hundred at this point. Cops

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Speaker 2: have like ten hours of medical training if they're on

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Speaker 2: the ambulance duty, which is a lot, you know. I

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Speaker 2: mean that's probably roughly what you had to do. It

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Speaker 2: was about ten hours or something like that. Yeah, total, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: or years? Was it years or hours?

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Speaker 3: Like decades it feels, but yeah, yeah, it's probably a

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Speaker 3: little bit more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so more than ten hours. And the paramedics. Of course,

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Speaker 2: we're not training to be become doctors, but they're training

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Speaker 2: to become a new thing. It is between EMT emergency

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Speaker 2: medical technician and doctor to be able to provide the

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Speaker 2: kinds of life saving support that are necessary on the

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Speaker 2: street rather than immediately taking people to hospitals. It was

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Speaker 2: a grueling schedule for everyone, the teachers and the students alike, days, nights,

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Speaker 2: and weekends. They learned far more than any civilian ambulance

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Speaker 2: team and probably history. Yeah, everyone without a high school

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Speaker 2: degree was like coach through gd programs on the side

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Speaker 2: during all of this. Well so cool man, Yeah, they're like,

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Speaker 2: it is so cool what they did, and it it

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Speaker 2: really proves the point about giving people a chance to

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Speaker 2: do good things and save lives and you know, and

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Speaker 2: people are taking advantage of it. It's just so cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: only twenty four or the forty four of them made

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Speaker 2: it through the classroom portion of the training, just because

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Speaker 2: it was an incredibly grueling classroom thing, you know. And

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Speaker 2: then they after that they did rotations. They did rotations

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Speaker 2: at morgues and helped with dissections. They showed up in

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Speaker 2: operating rooms, they showed up in emergency rooms they would

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Speaker 2: like they had problems where they wanted to show up

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Speaker 2: and like help deliver babies. They faced racism everywhere they went.

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Speaker 2: Doctors would assume they were orderlies and like hand them

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Speaker 2: ups as soon as they walked into the room, and

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Speaker 2: a lot of places they were just literally shut out

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Speaker 2: of even though they were with one of the most

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Speaker 2: important doctors in the city.

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Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I mean, you know, if you talked

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Speaker 3: to like black doc is now, you'll still hear. Everyone

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Speaker 3: has like a story where they walk in and they're like, okay,

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Speaker 3: you can take my tray, I'm done with it, and

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Speaker 3: they're like, no, God, I'm not here for the tray.

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Speaker 2: I wish that surprised me in any way. And actually

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Speaker 2: some of them started off as orderly. There's one, Oh,

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Speaker 2: I didn't write down his name, unfortunately. There was one

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Speaker 2: guy who later he sticks with us for decades and

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Speaker 2: becomes a paramedic and stuff like that. He actually started

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Speaker 2: off as an orderly and he saw these first paramedics

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Speaker 2: come in. He saw black men come in and take

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Speaker 2: charge of a situation and like be treated with respect,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, I don't even know what that

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Speaker 2: job is, but that's gonna be my job now, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, And so they finished, they finished their

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Speaker 2: three hundred hour training and they were they went down

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Speaker 2: to Baltimore to do ambulance rides to do to like

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Speaker 2: start doing it because Saffar had more connections with fire

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Speaker 2: departments in Baltimore than he did with police in Pittsburgh. Right,

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Speaker 2: But before they could go these first ambulance rides, and

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Speaker 2: so the first paramedics in history weren't in Baltimore because

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Speaker 2: some asshole went and killed Martin Luther King Junior, and Pittsburgh,

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Speaker 2: among other places, revolted, and so the first time a

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Speaker 2: paramedic team in history did medical work was in black

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Speaker 2: neighborhoods during the riots after Martin Luther King Junior's assassination.

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Speaker 2: And they didn't have their ambulance as yet. So they

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Speaker 2: were in borrowed cop vans because the city was on

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Speaker 2: we'll talk about the relationship with the city. It wasn't great,

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Speaker 2: but it did exist. You know, they used borrowed cop

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Speaker 2: vans and so they had to keep the inside lights

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Speaker 2: on so that people could see that they were black

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Speaker 2: paramedics and not cops. And I don't know, I think

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Speaker 2: that rules that that is the birth of the paramedic profession.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that is so cool, so cool. It's crazy that

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Speaker 3: we don't mean it's someone that sounds so ripe for

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Speaker 3: like a movie. I'm surprised and no one made a

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Speaker 3: movie of this yet.

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Speaker 2: I know there's a short documentary, it's not even a

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Speaker 2: feature length documentary. But yeah, no, I would watch the

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Speaker 2: shit out of the movie version of this. It even has,

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Speaker 2: it has all of the notes we're going to get

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Speaker 2: to it. There's even a token white paramedic who is

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Speaker 2: literally there as a token white paramedic. So you still yeah,

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Speaker 2: but you know what else is good and entertaining and

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Speaker 2: created within the confines of a capitalist system because the movie.

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Speaker 3: I can guess, I know, I can guess. It's a

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Speaker 3: it's ads.

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Speaker 2: It is, it is ads. Yeah, pretty smart. Yeah, you're

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Speaker 2: pretty good at this. This isn't your first rodeo. Here

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Speaker 2: they are and we're back. So Freedom House, which is

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Speaker 2: still the name it is operating under, is up and running.

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Speaker 2: And they had an ambulance service, and it was by

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Speaker 2: July nineteen sixty eight. Whenever someone called emergency services, if

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Speaker 2: it was a medical call for the Hill Oakland under Downtown,

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Speaker 2: three different neighborhoods not Oakland in the Bay but confuses me.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, the call was routed to Freedom House

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Speaker 2: and they'd send out an ambulance with actual paramedics. In

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Speaker 2: their first year, they responded to six thousand calls and

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Speaker 2: saved at least two hundred lives directly. Wow, it's good. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it strong. Yeah, there's like thirty five of well, it

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Speaker 2: starts off with twenty four. Soon enough there's thirty five

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Speaker 2: of them that new classes are immediately cycling in, you know.

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Speaker 2: But it's like not a huge operation. The financing for

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Speaker 2: the whole thing was really scant. They managed loans from

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Speaker 2: a bunch of foundations and government shit, and soon they

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Speaker 2: had a second class in paramedics school. By nineteen sixty

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Speaker 2: nine they had actual ambulances that were purpose built that

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Speaker 2: they like designed the first ambulances that look like today's ambulances,

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Speaker 2: have a dedicated space in back and a place for

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Speaker 2: a medic to sit at the head of the patient.

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Speaker 2: And to quote Kevin Hazzard, who wrote that book American Sirens,

360
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Speaker 2: quote Ton Chevy G twenty van the kind of thing

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Speaker 2: the ice cream man might drive. The top was painted

362
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Speaker 2: white and bristled, with light sirens and a long whip antenna.

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00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:12,320
Speaker 2: The sides were orange with a large blue star plastered

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Speaker 2: on its sliding door. The words Freedom House jumped out

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Speaker 2: in large block letters, and they took a lot of

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Speaker 2: pride in their uniforms. They had like really sharp uniforms.

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Speaker 2: They'd like walk around with pride through the neighborhood and

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Speaker 2: people people joined just to become part of something like that. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 2: I could see that. It's really inspiring. Yeah, I know

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Speaker 2: it's it would be such an easy, feel good movie.

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Speaker 3: They really would. I mean I could already, we can

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Speaker 3: start casting. Yeah, but like all you have all the bits,

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Speaker 3: they have all the right bits.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think I think part of the problem is Hollywood

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Speaker 3: had this brief run where it was like they did

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Speaker 3: some really interesting kind of ideas like the first like

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Speaker 3: all black like airplane squad, and then like the first

379
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Speaker 3: basketball team, and then the first like sw I mean thing,

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Speaker 3: And at some point Hollywood was like, Okay, we got

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Speaker 3: to move on from this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but I'm like this is a good one.

383
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Speaker 2: I said, like an important one. Why why not do

384
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Speaker 2: this one? If you're gonna do some.

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Speaker 1: War I know?

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Speaker 2: And it's like it's not even the first black paramedics.

387
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Speaker 2: It's the first paramedics. Yeah, right, like you could do

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Speaker 2: a movie about the first white paramedics. They come later, right,

389
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Speaker 2: you know, sure they did. I'm sure that's been done. Yeah, no,

390
00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:25,960
Speaker 2: I'm sure. They charged twenty five dollars for their services,

391
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Speaker 2: which is about two hundred dollars in today's money, which

392
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Speaker 2: is a lot of money. But given the costs of everything,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, the average ambulance ride in

394
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Speaker 2: the US is currently one thousand dollars. Yeah, so five

395
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Speaker 2: times as much as what they were charging. Ye, And

396
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Speaker 2: the twenty five dollars wasn't enough to keep the lights on.

397
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Speaker 2: They needed funding from the city and shit, which makes sense,

398
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Speaker 2: And they got some funding, and that's what taxes should

399
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Speaker 2: use for instead of like genocide overseas. That's my controversial take, hippie. Yeah,

400
00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:01,879
Speaker 2: and also primary they're serving the hill and so a

401
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 2: lot of people just aren't paying their bill, which is

402
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,160
Speaker 2: completely fair. They don't have enough money to they shouldn't

403
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Speaker 2: have to. But in order to keep funding from the

404
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,280
Speaker 2: city and in order to get to like qualify for

405
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Speaker 2: like specific loan thing that happened at one point, they

406
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Speaker 2: needed to hire a white person. They needed one diversity higher. Yeah,

407
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Speaker 2: and so they hired one white guy who freaked out

408
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Speaker 2: about being the only white guy and he left, didn't

409
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Speaker 2: even come to his second shift. Oh come on, guy,

410
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Speaker 2: I know. Then they found this like working class kid

411
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Speaker 2: who had been the token white guy in his unit

412
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Speaker 2: in Vietnam, and he was like, I'm happy to reprise

413
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Speaker 2: the role. I don't give a shit. Yeah, And he

414
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Speaker 2: stuck it out to the very end, right on right.

415
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Speaker 2: So he would be the unfortunately main character in the

416
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 2: Hollywood version of this, But he probably didn't want to

417
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Speaker 2: be the main characteruse he was a decent fucker anyway.

418
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Speaker 3: Timothy shallow May's got that one on lock here.

419
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Speaker 2: I am essentially blind to name of actors and don't.

420
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Speaker 1: Do not know, definitely has no idea who that is?

421
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 2: No, I know like three and I use them a lot,

422
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 2: so I seem like I'm hip er and no things.

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Speaker 1: But why is that one of the three?

424
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Speaker 2: What's he in? He's in Dune and I like Dune.

425
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Speaker 2: Is he like the main guy in Dune? Yeah, he's

426
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:22,119
Speaker 2: more ideep. Wait the guy who is also in Star Wars.

427
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, no, he's the guy that's

428
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Speaker 1: in the new uh unnecessary Walker movie.

429
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, that would be Yeah, you're thinking Oscar

430
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 2: Isaac's who was in the new Star Wars movies and

431
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 2: in Dune he played Duke a Triades. Yeah, okay, I'll

432
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 2: take your word for it. Yeah, it's been a while

433
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,359
Speaker 2: since I've seen Dune. Even though the litany against fear

434
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:46,919
Speaker 2: is like literally a mantra use on a regular basis,

435
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 2: that's a great line. Yeah, okay, So they got the

436
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:52,920
Speaker 2: white guy and they're like it's cool because then they're like, oh,

437
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,160
Speaker 2: that's good, and they don't like move to suddenly being

438
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 2: you know, they're like, well, this is for a black community,

439
00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,440
Speaker 2: so we're going to stick the way we have it.

440
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 2: You know. By nineteen seventy two, there's thirty five paramedics

441
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,080
Speaker 2: fielding seven thousand calls a year, and the idea starts spreading,

442
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 2: like all across the country. National standards associations and shit

443
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: start coming together with totally memorable names like the National

444
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:19,120
Speaker 2: Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. The Freedom House folks start

445
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 2: inventing like new stretchers and shit that can go around corners.

446
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 2: And I didn't see any diagrams, so I don't really

447
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 2: understand them. Paramedics from Freedom House went all over the

448
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 2: country into Germany to teach their methods because it's not

449
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 2: just medical. I mean it is medical methods, but it's

450
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 2: also like how do you run paramedics?

451
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 3: You know?

452
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they are the world's experts. And like Saffer

453
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 2: absolutely did a ton, he came up with the initial thing,

454
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 2: but these are the people who actually did it, Yeah,

455
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 2: implemented it, and we're doing it and actually learned how

456
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 2: to do it. Yeah.

457
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 3: And they were calling it paramedics at the time. Yes,

458
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 3: that term they're using now.

459
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. And because Freedom House and Peter Saffer invented

460
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 2: half the cool shit ever, Saffer and the paramedics started

461
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 2: using Narcan to reverse heroin overdoses right on. It had

462
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,120
Speaker 2: been previously done to reverse anesthesia. It's possible that other

463
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 2: I am not one hundred percent certain whether Peter Saffer

464
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 2: was the first person to start using Narkan to reverse overdoses,

465
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 2: but Freedom House was absolutely the first organization to start

466
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 2: doing that on the street.

467
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 4: Yeah.

468
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 3: Very cool, very here, very now, so very important.

469
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 2: If you had asked me, I would have thought Narcan

470
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 2: was fifteen years old. Yeah, I know.

471
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 3: My friend Ryan Marino is going to give me a

472
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 3: hard time for this, But I thought it was at

473
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 3: least fifteen to ten. I didn't think more than that.

474
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 2: Jeez. Yeah, I thought it could be older than like oxycon,

475
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 2: like the opioid crisis starting in the right right, you know,

476
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 2: couldn't be older than me because I'm so young. Yeah,

477
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 2: and because these guys were so obviously not cops when

478
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 2: they would show up to calls and they were from

479
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 2: the neighborhood and they didn't rat anyone out for anything,

480
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 2: like they just really weren't cops. They could do things

481
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 2: like go to the overdose victims dealer and find out

482
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 2: exactly what the person was on so that they could

483
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 2: treat that and also provide like other you know, provide

484
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: the hospital with like this is what this person is on.

485
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 2: That's so so so cool, so interesting. Yeah. I just

486
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 2: got really excited about all that part because I'm just like, God,

487
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 2: that's that's what a lot of the conversation around emergency

488
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 2: response stuff is now is like, don't send cops, we

489
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 2: have someone odine, send an ambulance, you know, yeah, right exactly.

490
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 2: So the result of all of this patients in Black

491
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 2: neighborhoods in Pittsburgh ended up with far, far better chances

492
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 2: of surviving accidents, heart attacks, gunshots, overdoses, all of it

493
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 2: than people in white neighborhoods.

494
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh wow, that's that's This is where I'm sure

495
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,160
Speaker 3: it gets fascinating. This is probably where they're like, Okay,

496
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 3: what do they have there? We must live there. Let's

497
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 3: buy that area the hills now ours. They kind of

498
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 3: do sort of the opposite. They don't go into the hill. Instead,

499
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 3: they're like, how do we steal their thing? We're like,

500
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 3: we want the ambulance, but we don't want the ambulance driver.

501
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 3: You know, we don't want we want the thing that

502
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 3: black people invented, but we don't want the black people.

503
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 2: How do we do this?

504
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 3: But how do we say it make them more I

505
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:26,360
Speaker 3: don't know, American colored.

506
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is almost exactly what ends up

507
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 2: bringing down Freedom House. But before that, nineteen seventy two,

508
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: some like doctors at the hospital start auditing how different

509
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 2: ambulance crews, including the cops, were treating different people. Right

510
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two, doctors found that paramedics provided the

511
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 2: right care eighty nine percent of the time as compared

512
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 2: with cops who provided the wrong care sixty two percent

513
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 2: of the time.

514
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 3: God, I'm surprised it wasn't higher.

515
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 2: I know so enemy of all things noble and good.

516
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 2: The police union starts getting really mad because they're like, well,

517
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 2: we don't want new training. We don't need new training.

518
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 2: All over the country paramedics are like starting to become

519
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 2: a thing, But the Pittsburgh cops are like, no, we

520
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: can't do that. They're not going to let some uppity

521
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 2: paramedics change how they've been doing things and enter the

522
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 2: main villain of the story. The cops weren't the only

523
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 2: folks who didn't like Freedom House. There was this new mayor,

524
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 2: Peter Flaherty. He was elected in nineteen seventy. He was

525
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: not one of the best things ever produced by the

526
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 2: Irish diaspor He was a populist Democrat who refused to

527
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 2: align himself strongly with the Democratic Party, which sounds fine.

528
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 2: He hated labor unions, which is less fine. He claimed

529
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 2: he hated public slash private partnerships, which seems are right

530
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 2: on its surface right because he's like, well, all public

531
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: infrastructure should be run by the government, is what he's

532
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 2: saying he is notably only saying this about Freedom House. Yeah. Right,

533
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,439
Speaker 2: immediately after he takes office, he fires two thousand public

534
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 2: employees and then he turns his ire on an ambulance

535
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 2: service that's saving everyone's lives.

536
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 3: The important thing is getting getting in to the important stuff, right.

537
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. All over the country, Freedom House, like Freedom House

538
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: is changing everything, everything about emergency medicine. Twenty four states

539
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 2: at this point had instituted better minimum EMS standards. Miami

540
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 2: started a paramedic class. As soon as Freedomhouse got going.

541
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 2: They were like, holy shit, that's amazing. But back at

542
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 2: home in Pittsburgh, he was hated by the city government.

543
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 2: Peter Flaherty was what you call a racist. Oh yeah,

544
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 2: he And it's funny because it's like all the journalism

545
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: takes are like he was often called a racist, you know,

546
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,479
Speaker 2: because you have to hedge your bets.

547
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 3: What is being called a healthcare crisis by some in Gaza.

548
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. He opposed desegregating city buses, and folks involved

549
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 2: in the struggle around Freedomhouse were pretty blunt that the

550
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: main reason that Flaherty opposed Freedom House is because he

551
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: was an overt racist. So he at the very least

552
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 2: did racist things, but it seems very likely that he

553
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 2: was literally overtly like just an anti black person racist,

554
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 2: and he had actually kind of started off not that

555
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 2: way because he was a Democrat and he was like

556
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 2: playing to the base and all that shit, and he

557
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 2: just like shift, he just went further and further right

558
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 2: once he got in office. Weird again, the past crazy,

559
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 2: I know totally. I don't live in West Virginia with

560
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: mansion as my you know, anyway, Yeah, betterman? So, oh god,

561
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 2: he's even Pennsylvania too, isn't he. I think? So I'm

562
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 2: not a I know them slightly better than I know actors,

563
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,959
Speaker 2: but not a lot better. Yeah, okay, So he cuts

564
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 2: Freedom House's city budget in half. They were getting one

565
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars a year, which was not enough, and

566
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: he gives starts getting them fifty thousand dollars a year.

567
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 2: And he also says they have to provide just as

568
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 2: much service, and they somehow don't. Anywhere they don't provide service,

569
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 2: the cops will take over again. So Freedom House starts

570
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 2: fundraising everywhere they can, but a lot of grants, most

571
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 2: of the grants, and there were a ton of grants going

572
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 2: around for black businesses and stuff around at this time

573
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 2: required cities to match the funds, and so the city

574
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. So they got passed over for all

575
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 2: these grants, even though they are like setting the standard

576
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 2: nationwide and worldwide, because Flaherty was like, Freedomhouse has to

577
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 2: be financially self sufficient, even though he didn't ask that

578
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 2: of anyone else. Right, he was such a libertarian. In

579
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, he won the Democratic primary he was

580
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 2: already he was the incumbent. He also won the Republican

581
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 2: primary as a right end candidate and the Constitutional Party primary.

582
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 3: I don't know what the Constitutional Party is, but I

583
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 3: don't like it.

584
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't like it. Yeah. I used to

585
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 2: know more about them, and now they're all blurred together

586
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 2: in my head. They're all a bad Yeah. Even though

587
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 2: he was giving nineteen million dollars a year to the

588
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 2: cops and he was giving one hundred thousand dollars a

589
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: year to the dog catchers, the dog catchers got twice

590
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 2: as much money as the ambulances. Oh my god. Now

591
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 2: I love dogs, yeah, but no, I love dogs and

592
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: I love catching them.

593
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 3: But this is a that's such a that's such an

594
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 3: amazing jexposition.

595
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and paramedics made like nine grand a year and

596
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 2: cops made like fourteen grand a year. It should be

597
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 2: about eight times that in modern money. And the ambulances

598
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 2: were way cheaper to make than the cop cars because

599
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 2: they were like purpose built and not full of people

600
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 2: taking the extra money off of shit, so financing the

601
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 2: whole thing for the whole city. If they had just

602
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 2: been like Freedom House or even other paramedics built on

603
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 2: the Freedom House model who aren't cops like, it would

604
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 2: have been so much cheaper for the city. Yeah, but

605
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 2: it was a it was an ethical thing for him.

606
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 2: He hated whatever piece of shit.

607
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 3: Do you get any sense of whether or not there

608
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 3: was public support for this at the time. Were people

609
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 3: like upset about it or did people not even notice?

610
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: Was it flying under the radar, Like, oh it was

611
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: a big deal. Yeah, people started making it a big

612
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 2: deal because the other neighborhoods, including wealthier neighborhoods, were like,

613
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 2: can Freedom House please come here? I like not dying.

614
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 2: I'm a really big fan of not dying, like being

615
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: a live rules and cops suck at that particular thing,

616
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, but the funeral home industry at other

617
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 2: private ambulance services started fighting back against Freedom House too,

618
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 2: because that was like they treated more of like the

619
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 2: suburbs and the surrounding areas, you know. Yeah, and so

620
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 2: basically everyone running the ambulance services was like, no, fuck

621
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 2: you the private ones, you know, or the not Freedom

622
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 2: House ones. But yeah, and we'll talk more about the

623
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 2: activists who defended Freedomhouse in a little bit. So the

624
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 2: mayor was like, all right, what can we do cutting

625
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 2: their budget and have didn't destroy Freedomhouse? How do I

626
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 2: just a Freedom House? Because he's a fucking villain. He's

627
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: very highly remembered and his Wikipedia pages very balanced. The

628
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 2: budget and blah blah blah blah blah. He banned ambulances

629
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 2: from using sirens in downtown, so they were like, you know,

630
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 2: race to go save people and they're in the hill

631
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 2: and then as soon as they cross into downtown they

632
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 2: have to turn it off and they're allowed to like honk,

633
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 2: you know. And because they it was a noise ordinance,

634
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 2: it didn't want to be disruptive to the business community.

635
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, allowed to use sirens, Yeah yeah, I've heard

636
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 2: of that happening. Still.

637
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 3: Actually mean, I don't know if it's common, yeah at all,

638
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 3: but I have heard of that that is amazing. I'm

639
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 3: sure like there are like building people like behind real

640
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 3: estate developers that sort of thing, who pushed for.

641
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: That sort of thing. Yeah, and then he also ran

642
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 2: into racist patients as a big problem. And this was

643
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 2: actually part of because they started explanding to a few

644
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: more areas. I read a couple of different things exactly

645
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 2: about this, But they started going to a few more

646
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 2: places because people neighborhood councils would be like, we really

647
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 2: want them to come here. But individual rich white racists

648
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 2: would be like, what are you talking about. You can't

649
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 2: treat me that man is black. You know, I want

650
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 2: an actual doctor, not this black man. And so, and

651
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,439
Speaker 2: especially in downtown, right, you have all this white flight

652
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 2: from the cities, but people still come into the town

653
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 2: to work. And so when they're working downtown, a lot

654
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 2: of their patients are white. And so they just had

655
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 2: to literally run around all day and save the lives

656
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 2: of racist who would physically recoil from their presence. Woh,

657
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: what a bummer.

658
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean again, like you talked to African American doctors,

659
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 3: Jewish doctors, lots of doctors of color, they all have

660
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 3: some story still of you know, treating some patient with

661
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 3: the swastika or something like that.

662
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: That's very very common.

663
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 3: But this is, you know, this was just the battle

664
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 3: days of it even worse. Not great still, yeah, but

665
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 3: even worse. It's so hard to do your job and

666
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 3: to be like in to have a tough gig, and

667
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 3: to have that on top fit is truly heroic efforts

668
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 3: to help those people.

669
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 2: It really is. And on top of it all, all

670
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 2: these rumors started spreading around that they like sold drugs

671
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 2: and ran dice games and shit like that. And I

672
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 2: don't believe there's any basis to these particular rumors. That's

673
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 2: certainly no evidence was provided to back this up that

674
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,919
Speaker 2: I've ever found. Right, cops started trying to beat them

675
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 2: to calls in order to get the money from having

676
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,240
Speaker 2: you know, thrown someone in the back of the wagon

677
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 2: and driven them off or whatever. Yeah, And so when

678
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 2: paramedics would show up and the cops were already there,

679
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 2: they would like threaten to arrest the paramedics if they

680
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:54,720
Speaker 2: tried to treat patients. My god, then so far. Yeah.

681
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, the mayor did a one to

682
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 2: eighty he suddenly loved ambulances. Maybe they should be city

683
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 2: financed after all, as long as there's not Freedom House

684
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: and it's cops. Oh god, so close. Yeah, So the

685
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 2: city canceled its contract with Freedom House and set up

686
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 2: a cop run paramedic organization. This is when the activist

687
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: groups were like, are you fucking kidding me? And the

688
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 2: activist groups were like, we want to be interrupted in

689
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 2: the middle of like sentences with to be sold things

690
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 2: that were like, that's what we demand. We demand that

691
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: in the middle of sentences someone comes in and says,

692
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 2: haven't you tried listening to this podcast or getting mental

693
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 2: health services through the following product? Because Zach, same thing,

694
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 2: here's the Zach same thing. Yeah, here's the ads. So

695
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 2: activist groups, both white and black, fought hard against what

696
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 2: was happening, which was the destruction of Freedom House and

697
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 2: the empowerment of the police. The NAACP, various neighborhood associations,

698
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 2: women organizations, a bunch of different Catholic organizations, youth organizations.

699
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 2: Even conservative papers were running opinion pieces that were like,

700
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 2: we already have a good ambulance service. What are you doing?

701
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 2: You know? Because it was so transparently about race, Yeah,

702
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: and that's why they kept being They're like, no, it's

703
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 2: that I hate private public stuff or whatever. You know.

704
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,760
Speaker 2: But these activists might have changed the face of modern

705
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 2: emergency response across the US because they won cool and

706
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:51,800
Speaker 2: the racist in charge of the city relented and funded

707
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 2: Freedom House for two more years. It was like fine,

708
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,439
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, nineteen seventy five, you're getting funded again,

709
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 2: still at the like shitty rate, but they stop the

710
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 2: cops from being the paramedics, and that rules, and that

711
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: has like reverberating effects throughout history that have saved so

712
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 2: many people's lives, because even even if cops were fully

713
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 2: trained as paramedics, you still just run into the conflict

714
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: of interest about law enforcement.

715
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 3: And you know, absolutely, like for fens andal overdoses the

716
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 3: last thing. I mean, it's that's a whole im sure

717
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 3: of itself. Never call them, Yeah, I mean, what would

718
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 3: happen is one of them would touch like.

719
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 2: A baggie, have a panic attack, and.

720
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 3: Then they would add to the sentence of whatever guy

721
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 3: that they arrested because they would be like, well, this

722
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 3: person almost kills a cop. Yeah, we had to use

723
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 3: four narcans to revive him. Which, by the ways, how

724
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 3: narcan would work. But like it's it.

725
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 2: Would be terrible the concept. It gives me chills, literal

726
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 2: chills to think of cops running codes. Yeah. Also, can

727
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 2: we talk about the fact that, like people accept the

728
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 2: idea that cops are somehow wildly allergic to fentanyl, where

729
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 2: if they're in the same room as it, they all

730
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 2: die because, like it is, I don't do drugs. A

731
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 2: lot of my friends do drugs. Some of my friends

732
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 2: do fentanyl on purpose, which I think is not a

733
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 2: good idea, but the only way they die of it

734
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 2: is if they owe d on it, like not by

735
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:25,959
Speaker 2: touching it, correct for being in visual contact with it.

736
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, fentanyl great in the hospital. I don't love it

737
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 3: use elsewhere. But yeah, I have to let you in

738
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 3: on a secret. I also understand this process because as

739
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:39,439
Speaker 3: a doctor, not everyone knows this, but an apple will

740
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 3: destroy me, and for cops, fentanyl is their apple. An

741
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 3: apple will keep your doctor away. Sentinyl is the same thing.

742
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 2: For a cop. I think I know where you're going.

743
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 2: I was wondering if that was going to work. I

744
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 2: was just I was like, Okay, you are specifically allergic

745
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: to apples, And I was like, oh no, yeah, I

746
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 2: realized that. To make that clear. Yeah, yeah, bad, my bad. No, Okay,

747
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 2: I'm going to start I dehydrate apples and give them

748
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 2: to people way too often, and I'm just going to

749
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 2: start calling them a doctor Baine, doctor, yeah, doctor pain. Yeah. No.

750
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 2: It it the fact that people believe, I mean, the

751
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 2: fact that people believe cops like full stop is like complicated,

752
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 2: but the fact that people believe all of these weird

753
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 2: cop lies about fentanyl is just so. I don't understand

754
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 2: why we as a society accept the way that cops

755
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,720
Speaker 2: talk about fentanyl, even though again, yeah I love being sober,

756
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 2: you know, but whatever. Yeah. So the activists save Freedom House,

757
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 2: and I mean Freedom House also saves itself. They're part

758
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 2: of this process, you know, and they continue. They're underfunded

759
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 2: as hell, and they're honestly starting to fall apart from

760
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:53,280
Speaker 2: the inside from their underfundingness. At this point, their organization

761
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: is starting to collapse. Their ambulance is barely run like physically,

762
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: you know, mechanically. And then they always had this doctor.

763
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: They would have like one doctor who's like their chief

764
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 2: medical director. It was, you know, a doctor's being everyone

765
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,959
Speaker 2: else's paramedics. And this person I think was always white.

766
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 2: It was never mentioned otherwise, and I'm not one hundred

767
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 2: percent sure, but I think it was always a key.

768
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 2: And then in nineteen seventy four they got a white

769
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 2: Jewish woman named Nancy Caroline who basically slept at the

770
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 2: office and helped organize the place and bring things back

771
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 2: together and improve the level of medical training even higher.

772
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 2: One of the big like things that they didn't do.

773
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,760
Speaker 2: They did all of these different things. They would interpret kgs,

774
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 2: they would do all these like fairly high level things.

775
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 2: They didn't intubate patients on the street, And under Nancy

776
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 2: Caroline's training, they learned how to do that. Wow, were

777
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 2: they the first people to do that? They were the

778
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 2: first people. That's so rad Yeah, And I think they

779
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 2: were like the first people to like use shock paddles

780
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 2: and go clear and shit and like save people's lives

781
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 2: that way or whatever. But in the on the street

782
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 2: on the street, sure, yeah, Wow, that's so cool. And

783
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:08,959
Speaker 2: that's what I was saying, was like, shit that even

784
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 2: I've heard of, like intubating and narcan and I call

785
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 2: them shock padals because I don't know what they're called.

786
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all the shock We'll accept, all right, cool.

787
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 2: Thanks. So under her training, they're now intubating patients in

788
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 2: the street, which as hard as fuck and if you

789
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 2: do it wrong people die, but can be a very

790
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 2: important life saving thing. There's this like moment where they

791
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 2: bring in an intubated patient and they're like, Matt. The

792
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 2: doctor's like, who the fuck intubated is patient? And the

793
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 2: guy's just like, yeah, I did. I'm a paramedic. And

794
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 2: they were like, oh, okay, you know wow.

795
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that must have been mind blowing at the time.

796
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And Nancy was also frustrated by this other

797
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 2: thing that was defeating the organization that she worked with

798
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 2: the cops, and somehow she got a hold of a

799
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 2: police scanner. History does not indicate how she got a

800
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 2: hold of this police scanner, which means it was not legal.

801
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I assume either she stole it or

802
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 2: someone working with the cops stolen and gave it to her.

803
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 2: And so Freedom House started listening in the police scanner

804
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 2: and beating cops to medical emergencies to save people's lives.

805
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 2: Oh that's so cool, yeah, because the cops are already

806
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 2: doing that to them, yeah, but now they can do

807
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 2: it in reverse. And they would like tell stories about

808
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 2: being like, ah, I just was in the neighborhood and

809
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 2: happened to drive by and saw this person. You know, right,

810
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 2: that's so cool with their time today.

811
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 3: I'm sure they got their faster because they probably cared

812
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 3: more to get their faster.

813
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it. Yeah, And so she actually ends

814
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 2: up writing the book on street medicine and emergency medical services,

815
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 2: and Freedom House at this point becomes the official model

816
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,479
Speaker 2: chosen by the Department of Transportation about what ems should

817
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 2: be in the country. And so this is like they

818
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 2: have cemented their legacy at this point, not necessarily by

819
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 2: name and not by memory, but in terms of the

820
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 2: way that they've learned how to do things over these

821
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 2: seven years. Yeah. But the mayor, instead of being like, okay,

822
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 2: I give up, I'll listen to the federal government and

823
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 2: realize that Freedom House rules, he spent the last two

824
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 2: years when he gave them like the stay of execution

825
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 2: for two years. He basically just spent the time figuring

826
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: out how to copy it, expand on the model with

827
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 2: better funding, and then shut down Freedom House and replace

828
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 2: it with white paramedics, which is what he did. The

829
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 2: upside the thing that they won. Is that it wasn't cops. Yeah,

830
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 2: that's huge. Yeah, huge.

831
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,280
Speaker 3: In today's world, we look at like evidence based medicine.

832
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 3: That's sort of our mantra for everything. We tried to

833
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 3: have make sure there's evidence for everything. So I have

834
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 3: to think if that's the case, there's no way that

835
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 3: it would have held up. But the fact that it

836
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,760
Speaker 3: might have taken an extra fifteen twenty thirty years, yeah,

837
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 3: to maybe get the police out, and how so many

838
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 3: people would have been killed in that process, yeah, is

839
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 3: really startling.

840
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's just like an objective body count to

841
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 2: doing better emergency medical services, you know. Yeah, like yeah, absolutely.

842
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,479
Speaker 2: So these white paramedics who are going to take over,

843
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 2: basically it's like they're like, all right, we're starting up

844
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 2: this new city program. Freedom House is a few more

845
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,759
Speaker 2: months to go. And so the white paramedics did their

846
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 2: training rides on Freedom House ambulances, but the black paramedics

847
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 2: weren't told that they were training the men who would

848
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 2: replace them. They thought that they were training guys from

849
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 2: the suburbs. Who was gross.

850
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: That's fucking gross.

851
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:41,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolute fucking worse.

852
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,879
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like more people having medical training, good

853
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: that gross.

854
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were like, all right, this guy from the

855
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 2: suburb is gonna go back from the suburbs where this

856
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 2: is great, where the teachers were the trainers, you know,

857
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 2: what a bummer. The city was like, well, we need

858
00:45:55,520 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 2: a medical director for this new program, someone with experience. Someone.

859
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 2: Fortunately Nancy Caroline met those requirements and they offered to

860
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 2: hire her. And she was like, God, I don't fucking

861
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 2: know about that. So she went to talk to everyone

862
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 2: and I think this was like functionally a democratic decision

863
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 2: of Freedom House, but I'm not She certainly included them

864
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 2: in her decision making. Yeah, And she came back and

865
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: she said all right, because they knew Freedom House was done,

866
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 2: she was like, all right, I will do it. I

867
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 2: will be the medical director for the ambulance program if

868
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 2: you hire everyone from Freedom House who wants it. And

869
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 2: the city was like, no, we're good. And then she

870
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 2: was like okay, then I'm going to the press and

871
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 2: the city was like, okay, we'll hire everyone from Freedom House.

872
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 2: Good for her. Yeah. On midnight at midnight on October fifteenth,

873
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, as it turned over to October sixteenth,

874
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 2: Freedom House shut its doors and actually the token white

875
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 2: guy like stayed until morning to like lock up. So

876
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 2: it's like you have the fucking movie moments.

877
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 3: Every symbolism, there's some symbolism there, know what it means,

878
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,959
Speaker 3: but there's like that's a symbolic sort of like last shot.

879
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, I don't of you knew this. The

880
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 2: US government routinely breaks the agreements it makes with people

881
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 2: who are racially marginalized. What I know, I know that

882
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 2: was my face when I learned this. One of the paramedics,

883
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 2: one of the black paramedics, had actually been offered second

884
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: in command of the new Ambulance Corps, but the city

885
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 2: changed its mind and didn't offer to him, and he

886
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 2: just was a guy on an ambulance. So none of

887
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 2: the people, none of the black people from Freedom House,

888
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 2: had any kind of standing within the new organization, even

889
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 2: though they are literally the world's first paramedics and they

890
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,720
Speaker 2: have seven years of experience, so this is so wild.

891
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,399
Speaker 2: Most of the Freedom House people took the paramedic jobs

892
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 2: that were offered, but they were treated like pariahs. They

893
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: would like show up and people be like, oh, your

894
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 2: Freedom House and would like stay away from them. Even

895
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 2: the token white guy was treated like shit by the

896
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 2: new staff for having been part of the quote goon

897
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,800
Speaker 2: squad and for having been quote white only on the outside.

898
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So then the people who had literally invented them,

899
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 2: which is sort of a compliment that I'm sorry.

900
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:16,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, it's sort of a compliment. I like, I'm

901
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 3: sort of I'm undercover too, I'm off white.

902
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like so I kind of get it. Yeah,

903
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 2: kind of.

904
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 3: I think that'd be a cool, like, it's not a

905
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:23,840
Speaker 3: bad title.

906
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: No, I doubt he had a problem with that, you know. Yeah.

907
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 2: So then the people who had literally invented the profession

908
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,240
Speaker 2: of paramedics had to be mentored by the less trained

909
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:35,359
Speaker 2: new recruits because they were new to that particular job.

910
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 2: So they had to be mentored, and the city had

911
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 2: promised to hire them, the city did not promise to

912
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 2: keep them on, so the organization set about icing them

913
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 2: out to get them to quit or finding excuses to

914
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 2: fire them. They weren't allowed to touch patients, just observe because

915
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 2: they're the new kids, you know. They had to take

916
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 2: classes that were beneath their level, that didn't even meet

917
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,399
Speaker 2: national standards which they themselves had set set. Yeah, and

918
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 2: they were like given like constant pass fail tests and

919
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:09,399
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, we don't get one hundredercent, you're

920
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 2: fired just tomorrow, you know. And about half of them

921
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 2: quit within the first year, including Nancy Caroline. She was like,

922
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 2: this sucks, fuck you, you so demoralizing, and she she left.

923
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 2: She went to Israel to set up emergency services there,

924
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: and some of the paramedics, the first paramedics in the world,

925
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 2: ended up tow truck drivers and taxi drivers and shit.

926
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 2: At least one ended up homeless soon enough, and Pittsburgh

927
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 2: paramedics became an overwhelmingly white profession, though a few of

928
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 2: the original paradomedics rose in the ranks of the new

929
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 2: organization and became supervisors and stuff eventually, and then the

930
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 2: history was almost completely forgotten until now, until this episode

931
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 2: of the podcast. I am the one who's breaking this

932
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 2: story by having read a very best selling book by

933
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 2: Kevin Hazard. I will tell you this.

934
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 3: You are breaking this story to me, and I'm going

935
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 3: to be sharing this with every medical professional that I

936
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 3: have contact or range of Yeah, because it is just

937
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 3: amazing and it's one of the few ones where I

938
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 3: feel like it's still not too late to give the

939
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,280
Speaker 3: right people their credit.

940
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 2: Totally or flowers as kids call it.

941
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 3: Like, I feel like that, like there, I mean, unfortunately

942
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 3: some of them have probably passed away, and probably some

943
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 3: of them will never be able to get it, but

944
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 3: like just I feel like there's still at least a

945
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 3: little opportunity. And it's funny too because like just like

946
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:45,760
Speaker 3: with the Tuskegee stuff, Yeah, people assumed that was the distant,

947
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 3: distant past, right, We're talking about things that ended in

948
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 3: the sixties seventies, things that people who train people like

949
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 3: me were alive for and very much like practicing at

950
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 3: the time. So it is it is so important to discuss.

951
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 3: I think this is such a good such a good topic,

952
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 3: and I'm so happy that you did it. I've learned

953
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 3: so much from this.

954
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thank you for being the guest you were

955
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 2: you were, I knew, I was, like I had that.

956
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 2: I've been wanting to do this for a while ever

957
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 2: since I found this book because I was blown away

958
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 2: by the story of it. And yeah, I was like,

959
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 2: saved it for when I had my when I had

960
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 2: my doctor, guest.

961
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 3: That's me so but yeah, and then cool, very cool.

962
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 2: So the just to shouted out. Kevin Hazzard wrote a

963
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: really good book called American Sirens. I did pull from

964
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 2: some other sources, but honestly not as many as I

965
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 2: sometimes do, because he covers contexts better than most people,

966
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 2: most authors I've read. And it turns out American Sirens

967
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 2: is not about women in the ocean learning sailors to

968
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 2: their death. So a little bit of a disappointment there.

969
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 2: But you you are a writer, Yeah that's true. And

970
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 2: titles aren't copyrightable. Totally you could you can make like

971
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 2: Syle with the Z at the end. Yeah, yeah, totally.

972
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,839
Speaker 2: That'll be a totally good thing to do to an

973
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 2: author I respect. But speaking of podcasters I respect. We're

974
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 2: here at the end. Do you want to plug anything?

975
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 3: I would like people to listen to my podcast.

976
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 2: Go and do that.

977
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 3: Anywhere you get your podcast. It is called the House

978
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,360
Speaker 3: of pod You will hear all the people from the

979
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 3: Cool Zone, media world, the universe, the c Z m

980
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 3: u H and they'll all be there, including Margaret if

981
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 3: she is willing to come on. And it's going to

982
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 3: cover a lot of similar stuff. We're going to talk

983
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:47,240
Speaker 3: about inequality, We're going to talk about equity issues in medicine.

984
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 3: We're going to cover some random stuff. Too, like where

985
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 3: the spartans really as cool as everyone makes them out

986
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 3: to be answers No, So we're kind of all over

987
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 3: the place. But I think you'll enjoy it. Give it

988
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 3: a shot. There's something in there you're going to like.

989
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 3: And thank you so much for having me on. This

990
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 3: is super fun. I feel like I want some sort

991
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: of contest to get on the show. Its super cool.

992
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know there was the Golden tickets and

993
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 2: then everyone else died horribly accidentally.

994
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with it, Margaret Ye.

995
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 2: Interesting thing about working in the medical field and ability

996
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 2: to understand forensics totally unrelated. Well, if you want to

997
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 2: know more about I also have a podcast called cool

998
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 2: Zone Media book Club every Sunday where I read fiction

999
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 2: and it is on this very feed as well as

1000
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 2: the feed of it could happen here. And you probably

1001
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: already know this because if you listen to this you

1002
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 2: probably subscribe. I mean, if you don't, I don't know

1003
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:51,280
Speaker 2: what you're doing with your life. And so every Sunday

1004
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 2: you get a notification about me reading you a new story,

1005
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 2: and what do you got to shout out, Sophie? Just

1006
00:53:58,520 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 2: follow at.

1007
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media on social media. If you do use

1008
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: social media still because we have a lot of upcoming

1009
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: projects that were releasing this year that you should look

1010
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: at for a lot of good stuff.

1011
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 2: There's a new Jamie Loft is going to drop nice

1012
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 2: pretty excited there is.

1013
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:17,759
Speaker 1: We're really really really really really excited about that one.

1014
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 2: I've been finally listening to raw Dog on audiobook. Yeah

1015
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 2: it's so good, so fun. Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah,

1016
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 2: that's the book about hot dogs. Yes, Jamie's Jamie's book

1017
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,399
Speaker 2: about hot It is about way more than hot dogs. Yeah,

1018
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 2: that's secret.

1019
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: That's secretly about like labor and you know, health, health

1020
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:35,959
Speaker 1: rights and just.

1021
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 2: Really cool but also just like entertainingly written and about

1022
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:43,359
Speaker 2: the way that Jamie. It's great, but hot dogs are

1023
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 2: in it. Correct, Yes, correct, there's enough hot dogs that

1024
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 2: I as a vegan, I was partly. That was partly

1025
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 2: why I kept putting it off. And you know, and

1026
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,720
Speaker 2: then but several points throughout it, Jamie is like, vegans,

1027
00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 2: you're right and I'm wrong. Anyway, let me talk more

1028
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,479
Speaker 2: about me. That's so I'm like, I feel seen.

1029
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 3: Well, I'll also tell you, as a Gaston trologist, you know,

1030
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:07,439
Speaker 3: when I hear hot Dog the first thing I think

1031
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 3: about is somebody who went to like a barbecue or cookout,

1032
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 3: was in the hot sun, not hydrating, well, eat a

1033
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:17,400
Speaker 3: lot of hot dogs, and they got stuck in their throat,

1034
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 3: and I'm coming into the hospital like three in the

1035
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 3: morning to try and dislodge.

1036
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 2: That's so, that's the thing that pops in my head

1037
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 2: when I hear hot dogs first, even above how delicious

1038
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 2: they are, they are delicious, amazing that. Yeah, I have

1039
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 2: a weird job. My job is so much easier than

1040
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 2: your job in some ways. Yeah, but it's kind of fun.

1041
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:42,360
Speaker 2: I got to do some fun stuff. Yeah. No, the

1042
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:45,440
Speaker 2: people who I just described in this episode are fucking heroes,

1043
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 2: and I I'm very grateful for people who do that work.

1044
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 2: All Right, we will see everyone next Monday.

1045
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 3: Bye bye.

1046
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 4: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1047
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 4: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,

1048
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 4: visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out

1049
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 4: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1050
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:10,400
Speaker 2: You get your podcasts.