Lincoln Highway program focuses on Hill District's pioneering ambulance service

Those who visit Unity’s Lincoln Highway Experience museum Saturday can learn about a groundbreaking ambulance service that started in 1967 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

North Huntingdon resident Andrew Blenko will offer the presentation “Freedom House Ambulance Service: A Lincoln Highway Pioneer” at 1 p.m.

The cost is $5 per person, with cookies and coffee available for a suggested donation of $1. Those attending will be able to tour the museum, along Route 30 eastbound, at a discounted rate.

A former engineer and planning director for North Huntingdon Township, Blenko also served in emergency medical services in the Pittsburgh area for 26 years, where he benefited from the practices introduced by Freedom House.

“I didn’t appreciate until years later the incredible pioneering work that was done with Freedom House,” Blenko said. “They really opened the door for many services in the suburbs, which followed their pathway into advanced life support.”

Going beyond basic first aid, advanced life support procedures performed before arrival at a hospital — such as starting intravenous fluids — aim to stabilize critically ill patients who might have suffered a life-threatening event.

“It wouldn’t have happened until a decade later had Freedom House not started that in 1967,” said Blenko. “The thought of somebody starting that outside of a hospital setting was unheard of.

“It really paved the way for emergency medical services as we know it today.”

Blenko was inspired to develop his presentation after seeing a Freedom House display included in the exhibition “Pittsburgh: A Tradition of Innovation” at Heinz History Center.

The ambulance service was a cooperative effort between Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian University Hospital and Freedom House Enterprises, a nonprofit Black-administered organization focused on the development of Black-owned and operated businesses. Freedom House trained unemployed Hill District residents, male and female, to provide emergency medical service.

Freedom House Ambulance Service operated until 1975, when Pittsburgh started its own emergency medical services training program and service.

Blenko, who volunteers at the Lincoln Highway Experience, said it’s appropriate for him to bring his ambulance presentation to that museum.

Museum site director Scott Simpson noted the Hill District neighborhood was just off the historic Lincoln Highway.

Visit lhhc.org for more information.