American Sirens

“A gripping story of the people, places, and times that led to the development of Freedom House Ambulance Service, a Pittsburgh-based group of Black men whose efforts laid the foundation for the emergency medical services we take for granted today. Like many chapters of Black history, American Sirens is equal parts tragic and inspiring.” —Damon Tweedy, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine

"A riveting portrait...a fascinating and deeply rewarding study of triumph in the face of adversity."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A work that a reads like a novel. Hazzard relates how a group of African American visionaries, most of whom had been trapped in menial jobs, saw what health-policy experts did not . . .  After their new discipline proved its value in saving lives, organized emergency care, like so many arenas in US medicine, excluded the Black men who invented it and effaced the history of what all Americans owe them, but this riveting page-turner brings these medical heroes long-delayed acclaim.”
 —Harriet Washington, NBCC Award Winning Author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

"In a quintessentially American story that reads like a novel, Kevin Hazzard crafts an amazing story of an Austrian immigrant, an unlikely group of Black men, and a minority community in Pittsburgh who transformed paramedic and ambulance care throughout the United States . . . This heart-warming story is not just Black history, but American history, and every American truly owes the medics of Freedom House a debt of gratitude."
 —Gretchen Sorin, Author of Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

"Kevin Hazzard's revelatory American Sirens is a rich, vibrant and deeply human look into the wild journey of American innovation. Hazzard's exacting and expansive research is deeply present on every page, yet it feels invisible, as this electric story pulses, engages, and surprises like a great novel. Each chapter unlocks a new and important angle of this almost forgotten story, which makes it almost pathologically compelling to read. American Sirens brings a necessary spotlight to a fascinating, near-forgotten, and uniquely American tale."

“An amazing book: a forgotten story about real life health care heroes inseparable from the ongoing tragedy of racism in America. Kevin Hazzard has performed a national service by writing American Sirens.”—Theresa Brown, RN, New York Times bestselling author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives

"In this brilliant narrative, Kevin Hazzard leads us on a tour through the history of jazz, baseball, and the misnamed “urban renewal,” to set the stage for Freedom House, a Pittsburgh ambulance service staffed by Black men, that birthed the emergency medical services we all rely on today."—Julie Holland, MD, bestselling author of Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER