Encore: The Modern Ambulance | 1

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today when you dial 9-1-1, a squad of trained medical professionals arrives, often within minutes. But just 55 years ago, emergency calls were generally dispatched to funeral homes, simply because their vehicles were suited to transporting bodies. You’d be lucky if the person transporting you had any first aid training at all.

Throughout the 1960s, volunteer rescue squads emerged. But it would take the ambitious vision of a community organizer in Pittsburgh to spin a medical revolution into being.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American Innovations Add Free on Amazon Music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:07.9	Join Wondery Plus, an Apple Podcast, or the Wondery app to listen to American Innovations
0:12.7	early and add free.
0:14.4	A listener note, at the height of the pandemic, 9-1-1 systems in cities across the country
0:21.0	were inundated and soon completely overwhelmed.
0:25.4	Teams of paramedics became the first line of defense.
0:28.9	That's why we wanted to revisit our series on the modern ambulance.
0:33.1	Because less than 60 years ago, we couldn't rely on medical professionals rushing to our
0:38.2	aid.
0:39.5	Ambulances didn't exist.
0:41.3	Anyone suffering a medical crisis relied on herses, dispatched from funeral homes, or
0:46.7	had to find their own way to the hospital.
0:49.5	But in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a few people combined forces with an ambitious vision for
0:54.7	a new kind of emergency service.
0:57.8	This episode originally aired in 2019.
1:00.8	It's evening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1:12.0	An 11-year-old Elizabeth Safar is struggling to breathe.
1:16.6	Her shoulders arch up to her ears as her chest muscles contract, fruitlessly trying to
1:22.1	fill her lungs with air.
1:24.1	Try the inhaler, you'll be okay.
1:29.3	Elizabeth's nanny covers her mouth and knows with a large plastic mask and squeezes the
	...

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