By Megan Guza
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — On the first day of class at the Freedom House EMT Training Academy last year, Marva Taylor was late.
Ms. Taylor was part of just the second cohort to go through the academy that’s name is a nod to Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service, a program staffed almost entirely by Black men and women that revolutionized pre-hospital care in Pittsburgh and nationwide. The 12-week accelerated training is free, and not all applicants are accepted.
“And of course I was late,” Ms. Taylor recalled Friday.
EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist pulled Ms. Taylor to the side, asking if she was sure she really wanted to be there. Yes, Ms. Taylor told her. Of course.
“But when I sat down, that question stayed with me,” Ms. Taylor said. “I asked myself, ‘Is this something that you really want? If it is, you must give it your 100% and take it seriously.’”
As Ms. Taylor spoke to city officials and the rest of her training academy class at their graduation ceremony Friday, she thanked Chief Gilchrist for that stern talking-to.
“In a world where Black women are often see as less, she saw more,” she said from the podium in City Council Chambers. “When I look at Chief Gilchrist, I see myself in the future — a strong, powerful, successful woman.
“It’s been truly inspiring to see someone who looks like me in a position of power,” she said.
Sitting along the side of the room, Chief Gilchrist wept.
“What she said is exactly the reason why I started this academy,” the chief said later. “I was a single mom, I had a full-time job, then I was going to school full-time — I was looking at myself up there. She blew me away.”
Chief Gilchrist is the first Black woman to lead the city’s Bureau of Emergency Services. It’s not lost on her that the bureau she leads was built on the back of the men and women of the original Freedom House.
“I am chief of this bureau in their honor,” she said in her remarks to the class.
The graduates were Ms. Taylor, Sean Barrett, Robert Cook, Pacey Daniels, Aaron Pasquini, and Anicet Mundundu.
The program also recognized the first advanced EMT class currently working their way through the training academy. Three of them were among the first graduates of the Freedom House training academy last year.
The goal of that class, said city medical director Lenny Weiss, is to bridge the gap between EMTs and paramedics. Emergency medical technicians provide more basic care, while paramedics are able to give more advanced pre-hospital treatment.
He called the programs “an investment in our workforce and the future of EMS in Pittsburgh .”
It’s also an investment in humanity, said Mr. Mundundu, who also spoke as part of the graduation ceremony.
“We are part of this city, being human and taking care of other humans that we may or may not even know — what else can we do in humanity that’s that worthwhile?” he said.
Chief Gilchrist said she hopes to at some point to add paramedic training to the Freedom House offerings.
“You never know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been,” she said. “The legacy of Freedom House — I plan on having that continue so we don’t forget our past. But we also want to create a new legacy for Pittsburgh EMS. And that’s what we’re doing.”
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