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Amera Gilchrist is the first Black woman to lead Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medical Services after Mayor Ed Gainey swore her in as acting chief outside the City-County Building in Downtown on Thursday. City Council now must confirm her appointment as permanent chief.
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Poised to lead: Pittsburgh EMS acting Chief Amera Gilchrist honors Freedom House predecessors

Megan Guza/Post-Gazette

Poised to lead: Pittsburgh EMS acting Chief Amera Gilchrist honors Freedom House predecessors

Each day, Amera Gilchrist wears a white pin on her EMS uniform. It’s just a small rectangle with a red cross in the center. It’s not flashy, and it doesn’t signify an award or a rank.

It is a callback — a reminder of history and the people who came before her in Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service, an African American-led emergency medical service whose history-making existence was cut short.

When it was given to her, it was the only pin left of its kind. Acting EMS Chief Gilchrist had more made, but hers will always be a little different and a little more special.

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“The pin was not exactly white, and it’s not exactly red,” she said. “I don’t know if it was faded or if that was the diecast that was initially on that metal, but I’ll always be able to tell that one from the ones I subsequently had made.”

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Image DescriptionActing EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist holds a pin representing Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service. Freedom House was among the first ambulance services in the country whose medics — mostly African-American men and women — were trained beyond basic first aid. (Courtesy of Amera Gilchrist)

Freedom House Ambulance Service, based in the Hill District, was one of the first ambulance services in the country to be staffed by paramedics — most of whom were Black — with training beyond basic first aid. In the 1960s, police and funeral homes acted as ambulance services.

Founded in 1968, Freedom House ran until 1975, when then-Mayor Pete Flaherty ended the program and started a city EMS bureau.

The city bureau required different training than Freedom House paramedics had, and those wishing to join the bureau needed a recommendation from a city official or police or fire employee. That shut out many of the Black men and women who’d been working as EMTs for years.

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Chief Gilchrist wears one of the newer Freedom House pins on her regular duty uniform. The original, though, is always pinned to her dress uniform. The not-quite-red and not-quite-white stand out against the dark blue fabric and golden embroidery.

The pin is a reminder, she said, of how she got to where she is.

“I may be the first,” she said, “but since the barrier has now been broken, I most certainly will not be the last.”

A medic for 24 years, she didn’t think she’d spend her career with Pittsburgh EMS, nor did she think she’d continue to shatter gender and racial barriers with each promotion.

“I wanted to become a paramedic. Then once I became a paramedic, I said, ‘I want to become a crew chief,’” she said. “After I became a crew chief, I was like, ‘I just want to be the first Black woman to become a district chief.’ And when I became a district chief, I wasn’t satisfied, so the job posting came up for the assistant chief, and I got it. And I still wasn’t satisfied.”

She was promoted to Deputy Chief of EMS in late 2018 and was sworn in the following year, becoming the first Black woman to hold the position.

Now, she’s poised to become both the first woman and first African American to lead the EMS bureau.

Image DescriptionChief Gilchrist was named acting head of EMS upon the retirement earlier this month of former Chief Ronald Romano. She has been a medic for 24 years.(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

She was named acting chief upon former Chief Ronald Romano’s retirement earlier this month, and Mayor Ed Gainey nominated her for the permanent position Thursday, saying she is the right person to carry on the EMS legacy. City Council must approve the nomination.

“This is an incredible responsibility,” Chief Gilchrist said, “and I feel enormous pressure to do very well in this position because of the people of Freedom House — because they didn’t get this opportunity and, because of them, I got this opportunity.”

In her remarks following Mr. Gainey’s announcement, she said she hoped she’s honored those who built Freedom House.

“I hope today all Freedom House members, the ones that are still with us and the ones that have gone, are rejoicing.”

Dozens of friends, family members and colleagues turned out for the announcement of her nomination. Among them was her mother, Sabreen Aquill.

Ms. Aquill surprised her daughter, first by coming to the City-County Building for the press conference and then by approaching the podium to talk about her daughter.

“She earned it,” Ms. Aquill said. “She started from the ground up.”

She told those in the small crowd that they didn’t have anything to worry about: “She can do the job.”

Her daughter, standing next to her, wiped away tears. Chief Gilchrist said her mother his extremely shy.

“For her to come up to the podium and say what she said — one, I was very in awe, like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ and two, I could just feel the pride just emanate from her,” she said.

It was not the first emotional moment of the past week.

Across a courtroom on the first floor of Pittsburgh Municipal Court on Tuesday, a man waiting to testify against his alleged attacker looked around and locked eyes with the acting chief.

“Thank you,” he mouthed.

Ten days earlier, Chief Gilchrist had saved the man from likely death after he was stabbed in the neck during an argument near her North Side home. Alerted to the chaos on a stormy Saturday evening by her daughter, Chief Gilchrist ran to assist, still in her pajamas. The man was bleeding profusely, and she helped slow the bleeding until paramedics arrived.

“I was just dumbfounded,” she said. “I thought he would still be in the hospital.”

Later, he came up to her in the courtroom.

“He said, ‘I know we’re in court now … but I have to hug you. I have to — you saved my life,’” Chief Gilchrist recalled.

When the man was stabbed, the knife nicked an artery that runs below the clavicle. Such an injury is generally lethal, as it can take just minutes to bleed to death.

She told him she was just doing her job.

“I was just so happy to see him,” she said. “It was — it was just amazing.”

First Published: April 16, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: April 16, 2023, 11:31 p.m.

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Amera Gilchrist is the first Black woman to lead Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medical Services after Mayor Ed Gainey swore her in as acting chief outside the City-County Building in Downtown on Thursday. City Council now must confirm her appointment as permanent chief.  (Megan Guza/Post-Gazette)
Chief Gilchrist was named acting head of EMS upon the retirement earlier this month of former Chief Ronald Romano. She has been a medic for 24 years.  (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Amera Gilchrist was promoted to deputy chief of EMS in late 2018 and was sworn in the following year, becoming the first Black woman to hold the position. Now, she’s poised to become both the first woman and first African American to lead the EMS bureau.  (Lake Fong/Post-Gazette)
This was a vertical rotated in case of layout needs. jm Acting EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist holds a pin representing Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service. Freedom House was among the first ambulance services in the country whose medics — mostly African-American men and women — were trained beyond basic first aid.  (Courtesy of Amera Gilchrist)
Acting EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist holds a pin representing Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service.  (Courtesy of Amera Gilchrist)
Megan Guza/Post-Gazette
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