Do Go On - 541 - The Freedom House Ambulance Service

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

This week we hear the incredible story of some of the earliest paramedics, and the battle they faced in order to just do their jobs. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 06:07 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/us/freedom-house-ambulance-service-congress.htmlhttps://www.wqed.org/freedomhouse/https://teamrubiconusa.org/news-and-stories/freedom-house-ambulance-service-a-legacy-of-life-saving-care/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House_Ambulance_Servicehttps://99percentinvisible.org/episode/405-freedom-house-ambulance-service/https://magazine.atavist.com/2019/the-first-responders-paramedics-pittsburgh-civil-rights-emshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pGFo0OmfwY&t=3s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do go on is performing some live podcast at the 26 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Can you believe it, baby? You can come see us do three shows, 29th of March, 12th and 19th of April, 2.30 in the afternoon. What a gorgeous time to see some comedy. Sunday, fun day, am I right? And it's true to say that the tickets are moving fast, though. That's right.

We are over 50% for all of the shows, and more than 50% of season passes are gone now too. And that means you can see all three shows for a heavily discount. And a price. Oh my God. But, you know, feel free to buy three individually if you like. Whatever. Yeah. Hey, but also, why not see me and Sarangai Amarna, a friend of the show,

doing our new material show at the Adelaide Fringe this year. This year, this year, 2026 or 2027? It's 2026. 2026, March the 3rd to the 9th at Rhino Room. And I'm also doing a who knew it with Matt Schuett live at the Rhineroom on Saturday, the March the 7th, the, the, the, the. And yeah, Melbourne an international comedy festival. Also, the Cooper's Inn means Sarenne, April 7th, the 19th.

That means I believe you'll be able to at least do a double one time, maybe two times with Dugo On. Yeah, twice. And why not do it twice? Oh, do it twice because it's so nice. Oh, Mama. Double the fun, it's number one. Anyway, go to Do Go Onpod.com for all the links to these shows. Hello and welcome to another episode of.

of Dougalworn. My name is Dave Warnocky, and as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hooray! It's so good to be here in the podcast. It's wild. I'll try not to think about it too much. Because we're in a podcast. We're in a podcast right now. Someone is somewhere, you know, in Saskatchewan or something, and they're listening to us. Yeah. I don't, like, if I think about that too much, it'll freak me out. Yeah. Don't think about it. I'm not going to think about it. Just be in the moment. I'm going to try and be in the moment with my two friends. Thank you. Jess and the boy.

Yeah. Thank you. Greg. I want to say Greg. I want to say Greg. Yes. So I will. I've got Greg energy.

I think so. I said this to you recently that I think you could be a Stephen. Probably not a Steve, but a Stephen. Yeah. Would it be like a Gregie or just a Greg? Just a Greg, I think. If you were a Greggy, we wouldn't be hanging out. Yeah.

Greggie. You'd be probably, you know. President. At the UN or something. Yeah. Yeah. You'd be too powerful as a Greggie. You kidding me?

So, yeah. I mean, that's so sweet of you to think that you'd still hang out with us if you were a Greggie. Yeah. I mean, you are zooming in from our nation's capital and we don't really know what you're there for. We assume political business, but you told us not to ask. You said need to know basis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said that's...

And you said, you don't need to know. You said, you guys don't have clearance for that. And we thought, hmm, that's weird. And then I heard him as he was walking away. He was on his phone. And he said, oh, I've got. Not diplomatic immunity. Yeah, I heard him say that, too.

Which, what does that mean? I don't know. I'm trying a lot of different accent work up here. Anyway, Dave, from our nation's capital, can you explain how this show works? Yes, what we do here is take it in terms to report on a topic, which is often suggested to us by one of our dear listeners. We go away, do a bit of research on the topic, watch a do docco, do some reading, write up a report about it and bring it back to the group. and it is Jess's turn to report on a topic. Always start with a question.

Jess, do you have a question? I do. My question to you two is, what is the largest vehicle you've ever driven? Oh. Okay, I do have a sort of, I've got a station wagon type car. That's pretty big.

It's pretty big, yeah? Yeah, I don't know. Probably wouldn't be, only something that I could legally drive. True, you don't have a special license. I don't have any special licenses. So it would just be like, Like a van or something.

Like what about the car we had on one of our UK tours? That was quite big. That was a nice seat of van. Yeah, yeah. That was a small bus, really. Yeah. But I mean, Dave and I didn't drive it. We sort of corralled inside of it.

Carreined, I meant to say. Carined. We were careening mainly. And then Jess took the wheel and just said, oh, it feels like I'm driving a little beep, beep Barina or something. Oh, Zippy, what's this little smart car? Yeah. I did a lot of drive by feel in that car.

Yeah. And I was feeling everything. Yeah. Bump, bump, bump. Every other car on the road. Yeah. And in a parking lot. I might have, I can't remember if I maybe had it.

Actually, for Beer Pioneer, I drove a camper van. Oh, yeah. That would have been bigger. That's pretty big. That was, you know, basically a big rig. Now, I'm wondering if Jess is bringing up this question because you've got a sick answer like you've driven a tank or something. Well, can you have a think and try and think of the biggest vehicle I've driven last year?

Okay. Oh, an ambulance? An ambulance. Oh my God, you were driving ambulances, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which we haven't spoken about. And we won't. No, but... Just sold an ambulance.

I stole an ambulance. That's why I was missing for a few weeks last year. Yeah. I made the news they never caught her. So we're going to say allegedly. And I think that keeps us in the clear. I don't bring it up to brag, but today is about the Freedom House Ambulance Service, which is kind of the first of its kind, the first of the modern ambulance services.

Either have you heard of Freedom House at all? No. No, news to me. It's a pretty great story. And it's been suggested by a few people. It's been suggested by Daniel English from Brunswick, Ariane from Ireland, and Alan from Dublin. And it's been on my list for a little while of one that I wanted to look into a bit more. And I'm excited to get stuck into it. Is it going to be Irish? It's not Irish.

Whoa, two out of the three suggestions are, though. What could it mean? That they've heard of things from outside their own country. I don't know. It seems like a bit of a coincidence. But how? But how? Crazy stuff. Should I explain why I was driving an ambulance or does it just seem? I think people would be able to figure that out. Yeah. You're an ambulance driver. An ambulance driver.

Last year I did a course in non-emergency patient transport. So driving ambulances and treating people in non-emergency settings, right? It's not that interesting, but I was driving an ambulance and that was pretty sick. You're not allowed to put the lights and sirens on. So obviously I quit. but um these are this is a non-emergency uh siren okay you just you just have to yell that like do not emergency it's not a big deal don't get out of the way or anything just wanted yeah just wanted to chuck it on yep they're not allowed to have them on in school zones and I said

but I can if it's not an emergency siren yeah so not emergency I blasted it around hospitals and schools I don't know how to turn this off help me Okay, so Freedom House. So, a little bit of background. So prior to the mid-1960s, if you had a medical emergency in the United States, your best option for help was the police or a local funeral home, which is bleak, isn't it?

Did you say 1960s? Yeah. I assumed that they'd been around for a lot longer than that. I was picturing horse and car ambulances. Totally, and they did exist. And I even looked into, like I wanted to look into Australia's history of ambulances, but it's kind of like broken down a lot by state

because they're all kind of different state run. But yes, late 1800s, even in Australia and in the US, there were ambulances, they existed, but they were quite basic. So yes, it was horse and cart for a long time. Then it was a car, but they were staffed by, like, and I'll get to it. I'll explain it a bit more, but...

Depended on the state, but, you know, like, Queensland had wallabies staffing them. Yeah. You know, Victoria had possums. That's right. We don't have as many wallabies down south. Yeah, Western Australia had dingoes. That's right.

That sort of stuff. Black swans. Quokers. Yeah, quackers. Yeah. Quakers would get in there and CPI, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it wasn't so much for medical attention, but it was more like a lift to the hospital. They had ambulances, but they were incredibly bare bones. It was basically just like a, a stretcher and that's about it. And even the emergency departments at the hospital looked pretty different as well. From 99% Invisible, which does a great podcast about this as well, they say Richard Clancy is the president of the EMS Museum and a trained paramedic, and he says that when he started an emergency care in the late 50s, there wasn't really any infrastructure in place

created with emergency medicine in mind. In my early days in EMS, for example, emergency rooms weren't open 24 hours a day. You'd have to go to a hospital and ring a bell, and the security guy would have to come down to the door, open up the emergency room, then you'd have to get a doctor to come into the hospital. Yeah, sort of like you're staying at a caravan park and you arrive after hours. Yeah, after 5pm. You've got to call an after hour's number. Yeah. Darren will come down.

He's like, okay, yep. He's in his pidgeies. I'm just, yeah, I was actually. just go to bed but I'll come down. Yeah, yeah. No, no, it's fine. It's all part of the job. Yeah.

Most people arrive within the operating hours, but sometimes it's out of our hands. You didn't mention anything in the booking form to suggest you might be an after hours arrival. Yes. So I had already lit some candles and poured my wife a glass of wine, but that's okay. We were both getting into the bath.

Yeah. I won't go into it too much further. We are rose petals. We are trying for a baby. In the bar. But don't worry. I'm imagining Darren to be in late 60s as well, so this is kind of funny. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we've not been having a lot of luck. Yeah. Someone suggested a bathtub is a romantic place, so I thought I'll give it a go. Sure thing. Our bathtub is not of an appropriate size for two. It's a big bucket. Well, they're inside a part. We used to wash the dogs.

We are having a lot of trouble here. And honestly, it needs all my focus. but that's okay because the Perkins family didn't quite get onto the highway at the right time so don't worry about me and my seed and my generations to come this is one here

how many does that lead to? Maybe you've just killed the next Einstein. Well done. Or Hitler. Or Hitler. Well, okay. Well done Well done

Change of tone there Hopefully conveys the change of my message Anyway you guys are on site 402 So you're going to go down this road Now that I think about it There's just a code I'll give that to you now 7034

Yeah have a good one Anyway back to rogering my wife Oh Darren Anyway so back in the day emergency departments, not 24 hours, you'd have to wake up a doctor to come and help you. I wonder how often they had to keep waking up doctors before they decided, you know what, let's just have someone here. This happens every night.

This feels like, and like multiple people need help. It's like, I didn't actually realize that medical emergencies can happen at any time, not just sort of within business hours. I think he got shot after midnight. What are you doing? What's going on? When I did go to the hospital, sorry to bring this up again after I got hit by a car, It was like just after five

By the time we got to the hospital And the guy at the like triage desk was like Yeah, it's gotten quite busy at the moment I'm like yeah all the GPs are closed There's nowhere else to go First day mate Yeah I was like I tried and the GP said I reckon go to the hospital

I wouldn't have put that together But I feel like he probably should He should He should go It's like, this happens like every day. Every day we get a bit busier after like other services are no longer available. It's the weirdest thing. Anyway, I remember having the thought of like, am I in the right place?

But he was not the doctor. GP's closing at five is pretty. Oh yeah, wild stuff. Wild as well. Yeah, yeah. It was a Wednesday. Maybe they're open later different days. Maybe they think nothing happens on a Wednesday.

Hub day. Sorry, the way you said that really implied there was going to be more to that. So that's on us for not jumping in this. The Zoom on my end Pause at the perfect time It just went hump day And then he froze for a second And then I realized

Oh, I don't think he was frozen He didn't freeze That was the point Hump day That was a real life freeze Yeah I mean the implied was Am I right

I know yeah So if I could just give a tiny bit of feedback Yeah So what you said was Hump day Where I think maybe The tone could have been Hump day

Okay Do you hear the different It is very subtle But that's I think I would have got that, Jess. I really appreciate you thinking that I have that kind of tonal control. You do. Australian is a tonal language.

Oh, sure. I just, I was only born with one. It's very sad. That is sad. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry to bring that up. Your son has mono tone.

You're crying. Uh-huh. That's also him when he's happy, though. Oh, he's having a good time. Oh, when he's in the bath. The happy cry. We're trying for one. Anyway, so emergency services weren't really there to provide treatment at the scene

or even necessarily on the way to the hospital. They were just about getting you to the hospital. Throw you into the car park and they're gone. Kind of. It also wasn't clear whose responsibility it was to rush to the scene of the accident. Oftentimes firefighters were first to respond. and they are expected to deal with health treatment themselves. In other areas,

the responsibility for transporting patients often fell, like I said, to local funeral homes because they would maybe have a vehicle big enough. You know, like you'd use like something for the morgue or a mortuary. You could bring in others, you know, like delivery trucks. Yep. What about like the school bus?

School bus. What I just like a local dad with the trailer? Oh yeah Oh you go down to Bunnings Hire a trailer So we got to hire the trailer Yeah You had a Ute for a while there

When you were an air-endishicicicement I could have been on call Easily Would have got your fast too It was a V8 Poo I've hardly got any speeding fun since Just take it off from the lights

I would speed in that thing Yeah yeah Just thinking about it So yeah People go Oh you Someone said to me I drove them to a gig

And they're like, oh, I kind of expected you to be in a different car. This is a very sensible automobile. That's why, you know. They were saying that about the Ute? No, about my current car. They're like, oh, you don't seem like you'd have a sensible automobile. Thank you. Yeah, but they sort of made it sound like they were expecting it to be a, you know, like a piece of shit.

Yeah, what a monster truck? Yeah, yeah. Like an old, like, you know, some from the 70s. We can't open our doors at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How do you feel about that comment? I don't know. But I'm like... I don't feel good about it on your behalf. Yeah. When we're done, I want you to tell me who that was. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a compliment, but I also am like, I would love a car from the 70s. Totally.

I'm just unfortunately not super mechanically minded. I know. You'd have to know what you're doing with a car like that. You know what I was looking up the other day? Volkswagen Beatles. Oh, yeah. dream car. Like old ones?

Well, like, I love... They're all old ones, Dave. I love the new ones. I know, they don't make any more. The new ones are like 20 years ago. No, they stopped in like 2019 or something. Sorry, Jess, I meant to say the Nazi ones. I'd love a Nazi one.

It's a very specific... We'd take that out of context. Clip that. Great. Yeah, I was looking at the old ones. I'm like, oh, a bit. But they're so expensive. If they're like, well-looked.

after, oh yeah, yeah. Like tens of thousands, where you could buy a 2013 one for about four grand. Oh, right. They're like, you have it. But the oldies are like, oh, it's a dream. Just wait, they'll be making them again soon. I hope so.

Bring them back. Volkswagen, if you're listening, I assume you are. Please just make me one. Thanks. Okay, so anyway. Make it in jest mustard. Oh, or like a sage green could be nice. I don't really wear mustard that much anymore,

but I love that you still associate that colour with me. I've made it through about three sentences. I'll shut the fuck up. No, no, no, just, I'm just giving some background. No, it's fine. I'll shut the fuck up. That's okay.

I don't mind. I'll shut the fuck up. What I like is now all new listeners giving us a try, they've gone. We've annoyed them all away and the people who are still with us now get to hear the story. That's right. The ones who persevere, who deserve it. They earn the story. So one of the original Freedom House ambulance guys, try that again.

I'm going to try that again. This is what you get for sticking around. A man named John Moon is interviewed a lot and he will hear about one of the originals. But it says, John Moon, this is from an article, John Moon can still remember what the emergency services provided by the police were like in Pittsburgh in the 1960s. The public was faced with swoop and scoop, which meant you'd call the police and they'd pick you up, throw you in the back of a paddy wagon and rush you off to hospital. They could do little more than offer patients basic first aid, a canvas stretcher, a half

empty oxygen tank and a pillow, which often only serve to choke off your airway. Sounds a bit full on. Why they put on your face? Yeah, that's not where that goes. Why specifically half full? Tank of oxygen. maybe it's just kind of maybe the writer is sort of just trying to say that like they're not very well they're not well equipped I just think they need to use their words a little more

responsibly you said half full but I had read half empty I think that really does say something doesn't it isn't that so interesting that's really interesting so like I would never have expected you to have such a positive attitude or such a sensible car you're only just starting to get to know me just and thanks for finally letting me in The real me is, you know, sensible and positive. That's right. That's right. I wish you'd bring more of that to the podcast. Okay.

And on top of that, says Moon, both officers got up front. So basically the patient was left to fend for themselves in the back of the police fan. If you stopped breathing in the back seat, there was no one there to assist you. So it was very different to modern ambulances and modern paramedics. But very similar to modern police wagons. Yeah, chuck them in the back. Chuck them in the back. Hope they make it.

And if they stop breathing. Well, that's on them. But if Pittsburgh's services were typical of the country at the time, the emergency care provided in the largely black Hill District was even worse. Pittsburgh's mostly white police force was often slow to respond to emergencies in the hill, while many black residents were reluctant to even call the police to begin with. Is this a racist thing? They're saying they're slow because they're white?

There's some great white athletes. Name one. Oh, well, it's a question without notice. Quick ones. Matt Shervington. It's the only one we could all think of. I was thinking Thorpey. Thorpey.

Fast on water. Okay. He is Jesus in the pool and on the pool. Is this an amphibious ambulance? It's a submarine ambulance. Oh my God. That's not true. That's a fun twist.

That would be fun. But I would never talk about that. because that's ridiculous. So no one wanted to get in the exact same police van. The cops had threatened to throw them in yesterday. So there was, like, it's obviously, it's the 50s and 60s in the US. Racial tensions are high, and the white police are not real, they're dilly deliing on their way to calls to black neighborhoods.

So it's not just that the police aren't adequately trained in emergency medical care, but they are the wrong people for the job in terms of their relationship with the community. from 99% Invisible again. In 1966, the federal government published a paper that reported as many as 50,000 deaths a year could be attributed to pre-hospital care. According to the paper, not only were ambulance crews providing poor care in the streets, but also in the sheets. The paper didn't say that.

I just wanted to be clear. That would have been good for the paper. That would have been pretty funny. Just wondering how many Einstein's could have been in that 50,000, but also how many Hitler's? Exactly right. They were providing poor care. but too often there wasn't a hospital within driving distance capable of handling a critical patient.

The fatality rate for people suffering from gunshot wounds in the US was even worse than those in the Vietnam War. Jess, can I ask as a critical patient, so I was like, oh, really? In this van? You're going to wear those scrubs? I bet that thing's only half full. Half empty, more like.

So, okay, so you were more likely to die from a gunshot wound in the US than in Vietnam during the war. Right. That's not a good stat. No, and I think I saw a different stat, but it was like, yeah, you had a better chance of surviving the Vietnam War than a car accident. Okay, that's not a good stat. But, I mean, it makes some sense that they're going to be pretty good at treating gunshot wounds in Vietnam.

Whereas, it really doesn't sound like the system's that up well at all. The system's not great. I don't know if that's sort of a point you're trying to make here, but from an outside perspective, it sounds like it's a real mess. Yeah, it's not, it's not adequate enough. And this, these sort of facts kind of shamed the government into providing money for EMS development on a local level. So a guy called Phil Hallen, who was a former ambulance driver and came to Pittsburgh in the early 60s where he was heading up the civil rights organization called the Maurice Falk Medical Fund. The organisation focused on health disparities

due to institutional racism and he immediately focused his attention on Pittsburgh's pitiful emergency services. Is that where Pittsburgh gets its name? Pitiful. Yeah. Yes. Also, M-Folk, it's the M-F-M-F.

That's pretty cool. If you think about it that way. If you think about it that way. What is his name? Maurice Falk. Yes. Maurice Falk, Medical Foundation. Medical Fund, yeah.

MFF. MFF. This motherfucker sounds awesome. All right, a bit of fun. Now, let's keep it going. I'd be to go on. Alternative time. Yeah.

Should we change? Let's keep it going. Let's keep it going. Let's keep it going. Hey, guys, let's keep it going. I'm sorry, everybody. So it was clear to Helen that there was a lack of proper training and resources for medical emergencies and that this was effectively a public health crisis that was

disproportionately affecting black neighborhoods. He'd heard of a black operated jobs training program based in the Hill District called Freedom House and knew of their program that was like a mobile grocery store, which used a truck to bring fresh produce to struggling communities, and he thought maybe something similar could be done to provide medical transportation. From Wikipedia, which is a really great website, kind of all about ambulances. Oh, okay. Yeah, pretty cool.

The severity of the situation in Pittsburgh was brought. brought home when the former governor of Pennsylvania and former mayor of Pittsburgh, David L. Lawrence, suffered a heart attack and was transported to a local hospital by police. Lawrence had no brain activity when he arrived at the hospital and died after being removed from life support, a death that could have been avoidable with adequate pre-hospital care in the view of the physician who treated him, Dr. Peter Safer. It sounds like it was more Peter. Safer isn't a bit of them.

I know. I know. Unsafe, this time. Yeah. But, yeah, so it needed to be an important white guy for things to change. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. And Safa...

Grim. Yeah. And Safa ends up reaching out to Phil Hallen when he heard that Hallen is working to improve ambulance services in Pittsburgh. So a quick side note here to give some backstory on Peter Safer, because he's pretty impressive. He was born in Vienna in 1924 to a Jewish family, and both of his parents were doctors. both were fired under the Nuremberg laws,

which were a set of anti-Semitic and racist laws brought in by the Nazi party. Sounds like he's still a Napa baby either way. I think it's important to point that out. Yeah. I don't care what he achieved. Yeah. I just think it's important to point out that he had a head start when both of his parents were doctors.

I missed the next bit. Nuremberg what? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. But it is important to acknowledge that, like, how would you even think? of being a doctor if you didn't have doctor parents. That's right.

I didn't even know doctors existed. That's right. Well, they opened doors as well. Doctors open doors. Well, a lot of hospitals now have automatic doors, but back then, there would be a doctor there. To open the door? If you knew a doctor. Especially if one of your parents was.

No, they're definitely, they know the ins and outs. It's like me. I could have been a teacher easy because both my parents are teachers. Yeah, I could have been a salesman. I'm an, I'm an epa. Well, I was nearly an epipo. baby. Yeah, because you thought about doing a dip-ed and your dad said, well, don't get into teaching

as a fucking book. Teaching's not a backup player, mate. That's a good advice. That's offensive to my art. Anyway, so, Safa ultimately, he escaped the Holocaust and graduated from the University of Vienna in 1948. He moved to Hartford, Connecticut for surgical training at Yale. And he then completed training in anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952.

most importantly he is credited with pioneering CPR he is considered like the the father of CPR and he redefined important steps like the head tilt and the chin lift maneuver to open the airways of an unconscious victim as well as mouth to mouth breathing he's responsible for mouth to mouth Bloody hell. Yeah. Absolutely huge. Hi, Dad, I'm CPR. That is important.

Yeah, again, now it did seem like that was going to... Bit of feedback on that one, Dave, set the tone there. I think you stopped because Matt was talking and you were trying to be polite, but to us, you just sort of went, that is important. Oh, no, I was trying to do a joke, but yeah, there was a bit of lag there, I'm afraid, that really ruined. You said that he was responsible for mouth-to-mouth. Obviously, it's important, but it sounds also really creepy. out of context. If you don't know what mouth to mouth is.

Or just, yeah, I actually... He didn't realize that there was going to be any sort of medical benefit to it at first. Yeah. But he was really firm on needing to figure out if there could be. Create a firm seal around the mouth. Don't worry, I'm the father of CPR. Do you know what CPR stands for? Do you know what CPR is?

or what stands for? Combustion. Yep. Pairs, personal. Yes. Righteousness. That's correct. Yeah.

God, he's good. I don't know if I know. Cardio pulmonary resuscitation. Oh yeah, that sounds right. I reckon that's probably right, Jess. Do you think so? If you gave me a list of four medically sounding ones. Yeah.

Would you have picked that one? I don't know. I would have to probably. We'd have to probably. We'd work our way through it. Yeah. So cardio, meaning? Heart.

Pulmonary is your lungs. Bill. Bill Pullman. Bill pulmonary. Think about Bill pulmonary. He's got lungs. Think about it. Okay.

And then resuscitation. So it's restarting the heart and the lungs. Yeah. So that makes sense. Anyway, there's a really- I tell you what, who's pretty suss. This guy. Yeah.

Sissing her mouth to mouth. Yeah, resuss. All right. AJ, if we could have a little trim. Actually, go back through this episode with a, fine tooth cone. Yeah, yeah. There's been a few moments there where I felt a deep shame.

Oh, hey! I'm serious, AJ. Cut that bit out. What bit? The whole bit about us talking about CPR. Why? People need to know. Well, you can explain it now.

What you said. I don't want them to. It's the only way you'll learn. Remember Will Anderson listens to this sometimes. He can't hear me like that. He has respect for me. I don't know if that's true. No, it's not true.

Nah, don't worry about it. Sorry. Sorry, I'm just, I'm looking straight down the bat of the camera. Will, I'm so sorry he said that. We know it's not true. Well, no, it was like a fun idea to put it out there, but no one was buying it. No. There's a really great article.

It's linked in the show notes. It's written by and you'll love this. The guy's name is Kevin Hazard. That is sick and is it a real name. Isn't that amazing? Anyway, so he writes, The medical establishment initially disagreed with his notion that the method could, maybe even should, be taught to private citizens.

To prove them wrong, Saffer paralyzed volunteers with Curare, the compound used by Amazonian tribes to make poisoned-tipped arrows, and trained Boy Scouts kept them breathing using only mouth-to-mouth. So he used a poison that shuts down your lungs and all the muscles required to breathe. And then he'd trained up a bunch of boy scouts and kept these people alive using just mouth-in-out. Who were these people?

They volunteers? Yes. Right. For cash. So not really. They'll probably get in cash for it, were they? I don't know. I think America doesn't,

they just pay for all those sort of things. Yeah. So I don't think they really know what volunteering means. That's just a weird job. Well, I don't know if these people were paid. You've assumed. They pay you for your jiz over there. They pay for your blood.

They pay for blood? They pay for jiz? Yeah, yeah. I'm just giving blood and plasma for free, like a fucking pleb over here. Yeah. You're rich in America. Well, jokes on them

because last time I tried to donate, it failed and they said you'll have to come back another day. Imagine that being in America and you're like, you spend your time giving blood and they say, sorry, this lot isn't worth cash. Oh yeah, that would suck. Sorry.

That's not what happened. They just couldn't get anything out of me. Yeah. Same with me at the Jizz Hospital. They said there's a lot of it, yes, but the quality is bad. And we can't get to it. At the Jizz Hospital. I can't get to it.

Nah, Jay, it's very important to hear this. Leave that in. It's important to everyone hears it. Anyway, so gradually across America, ordinary people began learning CPR. He wrote the book ABC of Resuscitation in 1957, which is established the... That's confusing. There's a C in there, but there's no A or B.

Airways, breathing, compression. I see. And it sort of established the basis for mass training of CPR. And just, I just want to mention as well, his other achievements included the establishment of the United States first intensive care unit in 1958 in Baltimore City Hospital. And his lifelong goal was to save the hearts and brains

of those too young to die and to improve the life-saving potential in disasters. Save him so you could smooch him. He's just got like a room full of brains and hearts. He's the most amazing. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Do you know, he's listening? He's definitely listening.

From heaven. Yeah. I will just... Yeah. You've been jumping in. I just want to save you from future embarrassment. Don't jump in on this one. Okay.

So Safa's young daughter Elizabeth had died of an asthma attack following transportation to the hospital without provision of care on route. and this along with the work that he had been doing on emergency pre-hospital care, like improving CPR, meant he had ideas on how a new standard of care could be provided by a new ambulance service. Okay, I really wish I'd let you get that sentence out before we were jumping in there. Well, that's why I said don't jump in, and you didn't. So everyone's fine.

It was too late. It was too late. I'd already said he was a perv. I'll take it back. I love that name. It's not my, I've just been talking about it. the impressive things this man did. It's not my fault you guys were jumping in, calling him a perv.

That's all like this whole show's based on that. Exactly right. That's the whole thing. There's a whole thing. Well, one of us will talk about an impressive or a bad person or a good person or a medium person. And the other two will sort of play around with them like they're a cartoon character. So now you're like, oh, I wish you had, I wish you'd told us this guy was impressive. Well, who cares?

Do your job. Do your job and jump in and fuck around. I just thought, don't laugh at this bit because you'll feel. bad because his daughter died. Yeah. Justice saved us. You're right. Yeah.

So Phil Helen and Peter Safer kind of, there was a lot of conversations. They both had a lot of ideas. Phil contacted Freedom House Enterprises to help recruit paramedics for the new ambulance service. At that time, Freedom House Enterprises worked on civil rights projects like voter registration and offering job training and assistance with jobs. job searches for black members of the community. But nonetheless, Freedom House agreed to partner on the ambulance program. So, in 1967, the first group of recruits consisted of 25 men from the Hill District,

a low-income, predominantly black neighbourhood. At the time, local media referred to residents of the neighbourhood as the unemployables. Several of the men had suffered long-term unemployment for a range of reasons. Half of the recruits had not graduated from high school. some of them had criminal records and other were Vietnam vets. Kevin Hazard writes, After undergoing a battery of tests, including psychological evaluations and interviews with various medical professionals, the recruits embarked on Safa's 32-week paramedic course, the first of its kind in the world.

They learned about anatomy, physiology, CPR, advanced first aid, nursing, and even defensive driving, a must when piloting an ambulance. They completed internships at Pittsburgh's morgue with anesthesiologists, in surgical settings and in emergency rooms. And those who hadn't completed high school were also helped to complete their GEDs. So this is like a huge undertaking and a really big opportunity

for these people who have not been employed or have really struggled with employment for a really long time. Dr. Saffer worked with Dr. Ron Stewart. Unkey Ron? Unkey Doctor. Whoa. I have an uncle that's a doctor. I didn't know of any doctors in the family.

That's exciting. Yeah, pretty cool. And Dr. Paul Paris. That's a great name too. To create a training curriculum that would soon shape paramedicine across the globe. Dr. Saffa would soon meet a young and ambitious doctor, Dr. Nancy Caroline, who, while completing her medical schooling, would assist Saffa, Stuart and Paris in compiling the new curriculum for Freedom House Paramedics. So they go through all their training.

In the first two years, nearly 50 recruits completed the program. and began working from a base of operations at Presbyterian University Hospital. But before they'd even officially hit the streets, their skills were called upon after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, which led to massive riots in cities all over the US, including Pittsburgh. According to Valerie Amato, writing for EMS World, when the riots of April 1968 broke out in Pittsburgh, the crew wasn't ready to hit the street because their ambulances were still being designed.

However, with resources lacking and the Freedom House members having the most emergency medical training, the city assigned them to ride with police, two per paddy wagon, equipped by a Presbyterian to provide care to people injured during the riots. So they're already, and they've just finished their training, they're not even officially out there, they're already the most highly qualified people in that setting, which is wild. So once their two ambulances were ready, they hit the streets. And so again, like ambulances existed, but they were pretty bare bones just like a van, whereas they have two, but they're like properly equipped with actual medical equipment. Oxygen tanks that have oxygen in it. Well, you know, mostly.

They, yeah, they must have seemed like just like hospitals on wheels almost. Which is nowadays kind of what an ambulance is. It's crazy. And it's still like, they've obviously come a really long way. I mean, to be a paramedic in Australia, you need a three-year degree. Like they're even more highly skilled now, but this was already a big jump. So Freedom House Ambulance Service responded to almost 5,800 calls in their first year and transported more than 4,600 patients, primarily in African American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Saffer collected data about the patients and concluded that 200 lives were saved in the first year. Because remember, not every patient that goes in an ambulance dies. No. That's an important thing to remember. If you're ever in an ambulance does not mean you're going to die. And also, not everyone is going to die. Yeah, like you. But also not everyone's going to survive.

True. So, you know, these numbers are meaningless. So, what, 5,800, Dave, what's that daily? for new listeners Dave's a human computer. Human calculator, I should say. 15 a day. So I wouldn't have known where to begin with that. And 46, they transported 4600.

So they're probably going out to calls where people don't require transportation. They just need it. Couldn't get a cab. Couldn't not get a cab. Could you drop me at the library? We can only take you to the hospital. All right, take me to the hospital nearest to the library. Is that okay?

Is that right? I'll walk the rest. Okay. But if there's a red light and I could jump out of the library. You know? You know what I mean? Yeah. You don't lock these doors there?

In years prior, the police had been really slow to respond to calls in the black neighborhoods. Freedom House had a response time of less than 10 minutes in most neighborhoods. That's awesome. Often like, yeah. My God, it's such a grim story with a sort of like, you know, very positive moving in a really nice way. Yes. But it started in a pretty sad spot. It's wild, isn't it?

Yeah. Fewer than 2% of Freedom House's patients died before they reached the hospital. So it wasn't just about their advanced medical training, which was obviously hugely important. And like we've said, unheard of at the time. But it was also largely about the relationship with the community and the trust that the community had with them. Oh, they'd actually call them. They're exactly right. So from Wiki, Freedom House Paramedics had compassion for the community.

they told, they said when you walk into a person's home, you're a guest. That's the number one thing they brought to the table. They cared. They addressed everybody by their names. They respected them and they asked permission before providing treatment. So yes, it became, like for a lot of people in that district, which is like a lower socioeconomic, it's a poor area. It's predominantly African American. They wouldn't, like there was no poor.

point in calling the police for help in an emergency because they would take too long to come. It was the same cops who were threatening you yesterday. Yeah, they arrive and make it worse. Exactly right. Whereas now they actually had faith in calling for help. The thing that's probably holding me back from wanting to join up and work for these guys is having to talk to everyone by their name. Yeah.

Like, first thing you're, all right, I've got like five people's names. Now you've got to repeat it back to it. And you're the mother. What was your name? Sorry. She won't even say it. No, I've got to say her name. And you're the father, sir?

What's your name? Yes, I am the father. Thank you. Oh, my God. This is a nightmare. Yeah. How am I meant to remember the names? I won't even give them to me.

Here's what's crazy. And this is what I learned in my patient transport course is you can write it down. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, you've got blood on your hands. Yeah. You go and I know, where's my pen? Yeah.

And then you go, I could write it in the blood. Riling in blood. I just see your arms just got like names. Mum equals Tessa. Dad, something like Bubba. He had a mouth full of meatloaf. Everyone's calling him a Bubba. I'm Barbara.

Why is he eating right now? It seems inappropriate. Hey, it would be a waste. By the said it would be a waste or two. Anyway, so in 1974, Dr Nancy Caroline that I mentioned before, she became the medical director of Freedom House. She arranged ongoing training for the paramedics in such unprecedented areas such as intubation,

cardiac care and IV drug administration. The training Dr. Caroline provided would become the basis for the first paramedic curriculum written by her and adopted by the federal government the next year in 1975. She literally wrote the book called Emergency Care in the Streets, which is still used to train paramedics today. Who wrote Emergency Care in the Sheds? Anyway, so Dr. Nelson, she's a medical director now.

So it's a groundbreaking program. It's having real impact on their community. The article written by Kevin Hazard for the Avertest magazine, it's super thorough, it's an amazing read. He goes into a lot of detail about Dr. Caroline's impact on the organisation. but to summarize it a little bit, her medical peers didn't really understand why she was taking the position

with the Freedom House Ambulance Service, as many white doctors didn't exactly take them all that seriously. A quote from Kevin, when the operations manager announced her hiring, the men were incredulous, this is the staff, the ambulance, the paramedics, that a woman, a white woman,

would be in charge, didn't make sense or seem fair. What could she teach them? They wondered if she could possibly understand the racism and condescension that stood in Freedom House's way. But her goal was to prepare Freedom House to win the federal grant that would allow it to make a medical history and hopefully save the service from closure because the local government is giving them some money,

but nowhere near enough. And people are, as I'll get to, people are, like if you call an ambulance or an ambulance comes and helps you, you pay the bill. But these are really poor. areas. So if it's a choice between feeding your kids or paying that bill, you're probably just going to feed the kids. You know what I mean? So they're not, they're struggling financially, so they need as sort of as much help and federal grants as they can possibly get. So she's just trying to like really polish this place, like make it really tight, make them even more efficient.

So it's undeniable how useful they are. So she joined crews in the ambulances. She listened to radio calls. She instituted weekly briefings where medics had every detail of a case questioned and reviewed, and it wasn't about chastising them, but it was about polishing and honing their skills and making them better medical professionals. Over time, she earned their respect and organized for them to frequently receive extra training in various procedures and equipment. But she was very hands-on, like she was in it, and that's kind of how she earned their respecters. I were like, okay, she's walking the walk. Jamison Kahn's rights for EMS World.

Many of the paramedics of Freedom House used the program as a springboard to receive a general education or more advanced medical training. Yet it was the change in how these men were perceived in the community that made the position engaging. All the Freedom House paramedics cherished their new identities and the empowered roles in which they were embraced rather than shunned. So, yeah, it's sort of like their position in the community was now much. more valued.

Yet their backgrounds also defined their profession. During a particularly lethal heroin epidemic, the paramedics were able to reach out to local drug dealers and teach them the signs and symptoms of an overdose and assure them that they and their clients would not face legal repercussions if they called 911. They're like, we're not snitches. If someone's having an overdose or someone needs medical care,

you call us and we're not going to look into it or we're just here to help. So that resulted in the frequency of fatal heroin overdoses plummeting in Pittsburgh, just because they were able to actually connect. It's also good for the drug dealers because, you know, you knew those clients to stay alive and keep buying. Yeah. That's right. A dead client's not a good client, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. So it's win-win. So all industries are sort of benefiting here. Everyone's benefiting. Yeah. Kevin Hazard writes, the city's safety director called the service excellent. But still it was forced to beg for public funding.

It was tricky because nobody understood what it were doing, Helen said. Pittsburgh offered some money but not enough to keep the service running, so Hallen turned to the private sector. When a contract at the Ford Foundation expressed confusion in a phone call about what Freedom House was, Helen packed a few trainees into one of the ambulances, drove north to the Foundation's New York City office, and parked just outside its 43rd Street entrance.

All day, people climbed in it and out of the ambulance and looked around. The trainees gave a CPR lesson. The road trip proved worthwhile. Freedom House got the money Hallen wanted. And about 10,000 people died in Pittsburgh that day because there was one ambulance less than normal. But, you know, worth it. Worth it. Is that how many people they saved a day?

10,000 a day. Yeah, per ambulance. Yeah. Yes. No, that's correct. God, see, and you said Dave was someone who's good at math. Well, I think it's starting to rub off on me. Dave's rubbing off on you.

Yes. He's not denying it. Okay. I think on this show we praise perves, so. We're pro-perve here. We're pro-purve. Not only did this impressive and successful health service have to rustle up funds themselves, it probably won't surprise you that the Freedom House paramedics often face racism

racism from hospital staff and patients, as well as discrimination by the city government. On several occasions, the paramedics were assumed to be hospitalized by, hospital staff to be orderlies and were told to mop the floor. They're there with a stretcher with a patient on it. How are you confused as to who they are? My God. And white patients would be skeptical of the paramedics. Some would just outright refuse to be touched or helped by them.

So they're just facing battle after battle. Our man Kevin once again writes, despite its early success, Freedom House had struggled. It was undermanned and underfunded. The paramedics still weren't working across the whole city. Pittsburgh would allow them to serve only those neighborhoods they'd started out in, and the service ran the majority of its calls in the hill, a fact that elicited complicated emotions among the paramedics.

They were bringing medical care to people in need, many of whom they'd grown up with or gone to school with. These paramedics had escaped the cycle of violence, drugs and poverty that racked the hill, but now they were present for the darkest, sometimes final moments of people who had not. Freedom House charged $25 to $50 per run, but made very few collections, I said before, people were struggling to buy daily necessities, so they tended to ignore ambulance bills, and the paramedics weren't about to chase them down. Management had to decide where to spend money,

or rather where not to spend it. Ambulance repairs were one of the last on the priority list, so brakes and steering regularly locked up. Doors fell off their hinges. One crew reported that the bolts securing the passenger seat had jiggled loose, and the seat and the passenger had toppled over. Okay. At least once, an engine caught fire. And then the door blew open. The door. Yeah.

It's not great. But they just don't have any money. Well, it does seem like, I mean, they want funding, but it sounds like they're a mess. Why would anyone fund something with such, you know, poor outcomes? You know what I mean? The poor outcomes being the car needing methods? Yeah, the lack of funding. Why would I fund something with such poor outcomes?

poor funding. I want to back a winner. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's why you approached Steve Jobs just last year and said, hey. I said Stevie Boy. Bobby. Bobby. I want to. I like what you doing here. I want to invest. I want to help you out. Yeah. Yeah. Apples, is it? I want to get you off the ground. I've heard good things. I've heard one of you a day. Yeah. You know what I mean? Keeps the doctor away. You can think me as an angel because I'm investing in you here at the ground floor if that's what I understand is what that means. Yes. I said to him. And what he said? Well, he turned out has been dead for quite a while. So he stayed relatively mum, so to speak. And yeah,

couldn't get a word out of him. Absolutely deceased man. Absolutely deceased yet. I don't really got me. That's very funny. Absolutely deceased. Anyway, so they need funding. Initially, the city had agreed to contribute $100,000 a year and to direct emergency calls that came into the police from three designated neighborhoods to Freedom House. Then, in 1970, a new mayor took office.

Pete Flaredy was tall and broad-shouldered the son of Irish immigrants. Oh, another napo baby. I'm losing control of what that means. Yeah. Do you think a Nepo baby is just someone with parents? Well, I mean, is this guy also an Irish immigrant? I guess he probably isn't. He's, no, he's the son of Irish immigrants.

He's gone its own way. Because if he grew up to be an Irish immigrant, then I think he's used an unfair immigrant. Now it sounds like I'm, I don't know what I'm, I'm not making a point here. Oh, you rarely are though. Sorry. I'm often making.

Really well. Sorry, did you ever think you were making a point? Dave, can you think of a time he's made a point? I think I'm often being satirical in a way that makes a point. And, you know, if you dig a couple layers down, sometimes I am. It's usually a freak accident. Yes. But it can happen.

It has been known to happen. Right. But that was not now. Not this time. Not now. I think, you know, the whole Nepo baby theory, I just think right now I'm enjoying the term nepo baby. Sure.

Sounds good. It's a funny sounding term. You're not wrong. And I think it is also funny, and I've tried this in stand up and it turns out it isn't funny, but I think it's funny. So here we go. To, to, I think it's funny to talk about nepo babies outside of, you know, business and entertainment.

Right. Talk about it like, yeah, went to school with a napo baby. Got the job at his dad's plumbing business? No, it didn't even have to do an interview. I tried that as a bit of the crowd. I was so confused. Or just like, that's not what a napo baby is. And he is still going and working for his dad and not needing an interview.

Because he got the job. His dad's a plumber. He got a job at his dad's company. Yeah. The company's called Smith and son. I think there's something funny in Nepo plumber. Nepo plumber. Maybe?

Yeah. He's a nepo plumber. Yeah. Maybe. Okay. I'll go back to the drawing board But yeah, I can understand why the audiences didn't Peace themselves at that one

I was a few years ago And they had an Adelaide fringe Maybe two, three years ago or something And I just remember them all staring back at me Yeah Going what? What are you talking about? You know what's they do over in Adelaide?

They do say like What are you talking about? I don't know how about Good news is they get another opportunity Should I go? Should I try it again this year? Yeah Yeah

Maybe they've Because sometimes you've got to wait for the audience to come to you That's right You were too ahead And we got onto this because of the new mayor in town Ah yes, the NEPO baby Pete Flourty As a city councilman

He challenged his own party's mayoral candidate And broke from the democratic machine That had crowned every mayor since the Great Depression Labelling self nobody's boy The 45 year old was a small government fiscal conservative who lowered taxes and trimmed, who lowered taxes and trimmed the city's payroll. I'm going to tell you, Jess,

a slogan like nobody's boy really speaks to the fact he was aware that the Napo baby criticism was out there. Yeah, he's like, I'm nobody's boy. Yeah. So don't listen to that Napo baby stuff. Nah. I'm nobody's boy.

I've never belonged to anyone. I'm nobody's boy. I'm an orphan. He strongly opposed public-private partnerships like Freedom House. Oh. Phil Hallen later stated that he believed racism was also a factor in his opposition to the service, but publicly he was saying, no, no, no, I just don't like it when, you know, these public,

like this should be something that's funded by the city and they're taking private money. It's because you're not giving them enough public money. You're giving them fuck all, actually. Oh, dear. Opeds printed at the time accused the mayor of trying to eliminate the ambulance service to pander to the police union. Dr. Safra echoed this view, stating racial prejudices, with white police officers eager to maintain control of ambulances citywide with a cause of efforts to end Freedom House's ambulance service in the city.

Such a strange thing to want to keep control of. We want to keep control of this thing that we're unequipped to do. The mayor? The police. Oh yeah, yeah. We want to say control of the ambulances. Yeah. Why?

Well, because we do it poorly. Yeah, exactly. And we've got other things to do. Well, we're incredibly busy. This service has taken something off our plate and actually are doing it much better. Yeah. Yeah. We want it back.

We want to do it our way. Hey, how dear you? Let us just throw people in a van and let them die in the back. Like it should be. Yeah. So despite this strong record, the Freedom House Ambulance Services request to expand their contract with the city to cover more locations was denied by the mayor.

This denied them the chance to serve more affluent neighborhoods in which they would likely have been able to collect the fees for the ambulance service. So hopefully generating a bit of money, being able to service or ambulances, train more people, service more area, save more lives. From Wiki, during Flaredes time as mayor, the city began providing payments for the ambulance contract late and cut its portion of the ambulance service operation budget by 50%. So they're just sort of like slowly fucking them over. This guy sounds like a dog.

Yeah. What's his name? Say it again. Flarity. Yeah, a piece of shit. Flarity, you're a dog. You're nobody's boy Certainly not my boy, Flaherty You piece of shit

Dave just want to give you an opportunity With the leg here If you want to jump in on Flaherty at all Flarity Providing Clarity about what a piece of shit he is Nice He added a little rhyme there I think that could have cut through

I think so If Dave runs against him Yeah But he just spins it And he's like yeah Providing clarity And he uses it and it becomes even more popular.

Yes. Oh, good to do it. He's such a piece of shit. My tagline would be everybody's boy. That's nice, actually. That's really nice. Unfortunately, your name in the group chat is currently plug, which is still funnier than everybody's boy.

Otherwise, I'd be changing it. But plug is... What about everybody's? Everybody's plug! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just get on that. And can I be Nepo Plummer?

Yes. He could also be Nefer Plugger. Well, that's funny. I'm actually sitting in front of a book with Plugger on it right there. You say that, Dave? Okay, well, Mike. That's beautiful. That's a great pop.

Oh, I'm thick freak, so I'll stay as is. Thank you, yeah. Yeah. Okay, anyway, so Flaredi, he's screwing them over. He also signed an ordinance barring the use of ambulance sirens in the downtown area, citing noise complaints as the reason. That's in the reason. insane.

Right, because without the use of sirens, traffic wouldn't move aside for them, which meant that police officers, who were still allowed to use their sirens, got to the patients first. This is bizarre. It's crazy. And the police sirens weren't annoying anyone. They went to you. No, nobody made any, nobody made any noise complaints about police sirens.

Is the cops making cash out of this? Why are they? What's the racket here? I don't understand it. It's a group of black men. That's it. It's just, it's not even. It's not even that they're just being dodgy with cash.

It's just pure racism. Well, yeah, like, you made the point before of these guys have come in and are doing a portion of the police job better and safer. Seems like real win-win stuff. Correct. But it's a group of black men, so that's unacceptable. Like, I don't know. I don't know if they're being paid like the ambulance service is being, you know, has a bill for it.

I don't, I'm not 100% sure. So maybe there's a financial reason. as well. I don't think they will be getting paid because they keep delivering corpses to hospital. And a corpse can't pay a bill. No.

Rarely. I can jingles some coins out of their pockets. Yeah, you go through their pockets, obviously. Maybe that's it. The cops are like, oh. Now we can't shake down the corpses. We can't shake down any corpses anymore. Because the people keep living.

Because they're getting adequate care. You can't shake down a living corpse. Oh, okay. Which is what we call just alive humans. Yeah, great. They've restarted that guy's heart now. I can't shake down his pockets. Great.

A person is just a corpse. It hasn't died yet as far as I'm concerned. And we're around. It's normally not too far away. Just around a couple of tight corners. There were also, like, there were rumors that started circulating around about the Freedom House paramedics, that they were running craps games in the back of the ambulances. They were selling drugs.

That $25,000 had gone missing from Freedom House's budget, which a couple of them were like, $25,000 was like a million dollars to us. Like they had so little money for equipment, for repairs. They're like, I think you'd notice if $25,000 weren't missing. Playing craps at the back. Yeah. It's so funny. It's absurd.

So despite the lack of support from the mayor and the city officials, no one could deny the impact the Freedom House was having on the medical community. Other cities saw the success of Freedom House's model, and they copied it. Cities like Miami, L.A., Jacksonville, Florida. but it wasn't enough that they were inspiring others. I read and I didn't include it because the article by Kevin Hazard is so good. It's a long, really detailed piece, lots of interviews, and he talks a lot about Dr. Caroline and sort of the impact she had.

But one thing that, and I was like reading it, I'm like, oh, that's got to go in, that's got to go in. I was like, I have to call it somewhere. But I did see that there was like a, for one of the better words, a conference, a medical conference in town, and she set up like a demonstration of the ambulances and what they do on scene. And so they, like, they rehearsed and they practiced and they did it, and they'd like cleared, let's say they simulated a car accident and there was like a number of of actors or people being victims. And all of these medical professionals are watching.

So they poison them with South American darts? They did. They did indeed, yes. And they said, look how we can keep them breathing. But they did a demonstration of like what they do on the scene and all the actual, it's not just like picking these people up off the floor and chucking them in the car, it's actually treating them and caring for them. And everybody watching was stunned and so impressed. And so it started to like, by the performances.

By the performances, that was so convincing. I believed you. I believed you were in an accident. I believed you were hurt. Are you okay? Oh, my God. You have a long career ahead of you. You're fantastic.

Wonderful performance. The reviews in the New York Times were rave. Absolutely stunning. It was a smash. A car smash. It was on Broadway by the next week. So they're really like, they're inspiring others. And in the medical community, they're absolutely seeing the worth of,

these paramedics, but the city was just not supporting them. Did they use white actors? Because that could have... That could have made them care more. Yeah. No, the doctors still care. The city didn't care. Because you did say some of the doctors and hospitals were also a bit racist about it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Of course. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah, of course. It's crazy. Racism existed then.

I think it's gone now. It's been well, it was solved. Yeah, we solved it. It is so good living in utopia. So. It's definitely better. I think it's definitely better than that though, right? Oh, yeah, we're just more subtle about it now.

Oh, okay. You know, it's microaggressions now. That's the hot new thing in racism. You know, generally speaking, I prefer to keep the aggressions micro, you know? Sure. Oh, they notice those are just a microaggression. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And it was just one, I assume. That's the thing about microaggressions. It's just one. You might come across one every now and then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that it slowly chips away at you. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. You experience one in your life and you go, huh.

Yeah, that was. You know, it could be worse, you said. You used to be macroaggressions. And then you go about your perfect life. Yeah. So that's good. So in 1974, the mayor announced a plan to institute a citywide emergency care system, complete with state-of-the-art ambulances,

by paramedics. And rather than absorb the groundbreaking company of black paramedics, he proposed training police officers. He's like, don't worry about the paramedics we already have that are already highly trained, best in the world. We're just going to train up the cops we have, the white cops. I mean, these cops are desperate to do any other job than be a cop, right? Yeah.

They just want to get out of it. Yeah. So facing some resistance and people protesting a little bit, he graciously agreed to allow the funding of Freedom House until the end of 1975, at which time he announced the creation of a citywide ambulance service to be staffed by non-police paramedics. So at first he was like, no, no, no, guys, we're just training up the police. And then once he'd properly closed down Freedom House, he said,

fantastic, now we're going to make paramedics. Oh. Isn't that fucked? What is going on? It's wild. So the Freedom House Ambulance Service closed. in October of 1975. The new city ambulance service initially hired all white staff.

Then the previous medical director of Freedom House, Dr. Nancy Caroline, she accepted a position as medical director of the new city ambulance service on the condition that the Freedom House paramedics and dispatchers were also hired and that Freedom House ambulance crews would be kept together. Because she was so highly trained, she was a real leader in this industry. So she's a great person to be the medical director of this job. So naturally they want her. So she's like, okay.

And she's white. So they want her? Yeah, but she's a woman. Oh, true. So they probably offered it to a few other people first. But she agreed to take it. But then she thought, okay, well, this is my opportunity to bring everybody with me. So the Freedom House paramedics were hired, but their crews were broken up.

Okay. Those with criminal records were fired. The new City Ambulance Service introduced pass-fail exams, which covered materials that the Freedom House paramedics hadn't been taught, so many of them were dismissed that way. Most of those remaining were reassigned to non-medical or non-essential work, nearly always placed in a position below a white employee who had far less experience than them. Of the 26 Freedom House employees who joined the City Ambulance Service, only half remained a year later, ultimately only five remained with the City Ambulance Service, and only one was promoted into a... leadership position. Not even Caroline was immune. City officials quietly pushed her towards the door and she left the job as medical director in 1976. So she joined to try to like, she's like, all right, I can't do anything about, like, you're closing down Freedom House, but I can,

I can take all the training and everything that we've created and I can take these people with me. And they've got rid of them all. Right. And then they sort of just sort of use her experience for a year and then pushed her out as well. Yep. Grim. Caroline went on to write the first textbook on EMS training. She moved to Israel in 1977 and founded that country's National Ambulance Service.

She flew medical relief missions to Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia, then returned to Israel to start its first palliative care program. In 2002, she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. She spent her final days in her own hospice center, where she died at the age of 58. She maintained a close friendship with Safra until the end. He died the following year at age 79 after being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine three times.

So just like, I mean, that's a pretty obviously bleak. I'm talking about the end of their lives, but both of them went on to do lots of very impressive things in the medical field. And Nobel Prize three times. So the story of the Freedom House Ambulance Service was almost forgotten to history. And in fact, it still isn't as known as it should be. A couple of documentaries have been made about it. Only in the last few years. One came out in January of 2023.

The Pittsburgh local television station WQED released a documentary called Freedom House Ambulance at the first responders. Several of the paramedics are interviewed, which is really cool. And Heroes on Call is another one that only came out in February of last year on a local streamer. I watched The First Responders on YouTube. I thought it was very interesting. the number of comments on YouTube that said they'd only heard about Freedom House because of an episode of the TV show The Pit. Ah, right.

Which the first season came out last year. There's a patient named Willie. He's an 81-year-old man with dementia. And while they're working on him, he's like, he's making little comments about things that they're doing or equipment they're using. And they're like, what's going on here? You've got medical background? And they find out he was one of the original Freedom House.

ambulance medics. Told you they were good actors. Great actors. See, they're still getting work. Still getting work all these years later. All these years later. And then Dr. Robby's, Noah Wiley's character, explains to some of the younger interns what Freedom House was

and that they were the first paramedics in the country. So a lot of people have really only heard about them as a brief mention in the pit, which is so interesting and wild, but at least their stories finally getting told, I guess. So it's not so much, it's not really the happiest story, obviously, but it's also really impressive that the first sort of modern paramedics were a group of black men from a very poor area who were given an opportunity by Jewish doctors, trained them up, and then they've just

been really overlooked by history. And I just think it's a very cool, but obviously not the happiest ending, but a very cool story about an advancement to, I don't know, medical treatment and an emergency care. It's very cool. Or not? Oh, sorry. David and I didn't realize you'd finish your sentence. It just sounded the way you said it like you're in the middle of a sentence. Could I have some feedback on it? Yeah, well, just a tonal thing. Okay. If you speak only in the one tone all the time, that should get rid of most of the confusion. I see. Okay, gotcha. Sorry, that's on me. So yeah.

But yeah, that's my report on the... I thought you did a really good job. Thanks so much. I'm just wrapping it up. That's my report on the Freedom House Ambulance Service. Fantastic. Really good stuff. Like you said, Jess, it's super impressive.

And I think we were all hoping for the happy ending. But it's really, really good. Yeah, amazing that they pioneered all that stuff. And that fucking prick flannery. Flarity. Flarity. I don't even... I'm not committing his name to memory.

Yeah, who cares. Fuck him. Don't worry about him. But remember Freedom House. And yeah, there's several, all the resources I used to write this linked in the show notes, but a couple of them are really, really in-depth, really great articles I'd recommend going and reading it. Because the paramedics are interviewed about sort of their experiences and it's really, like, it's fascinating. And just the layers to it, like the sense of purpose they felt from being given the opportunity to do something so,

impactful with their lives. It's really cool. It's amazing. Well, we've said goodbye to Dave, mainly because his internet connection was so poor. But we say hello to everyone's favorite section of the Patreon section, where we thank some of our great Patreon supporters who've been supporting us and really keeping the show a lot. Oh yeah. This show doesn't exist without them. And if you want to be one of them, you can go to patreon.com slash do you go on pod. Is that right? What I just said? Man, I'm on autopilot. And that's okay.

Because I've got a pain in the neck. Yeah. A pain that you deal with all the time, but I've had it for the first time and I want to end it all. Yeah. Now, hopefully, does that explain some of my shit attitude? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like I want to be a really mean person right now. I understand. But, yeah, the way this works is, I'm feeling good, I should say. I was just playing it up. I don't want the listeners to feel like I'm not having a great time. You don't want them to know that you're a human being who experiences pain just like them? I don't want them to know that.

Okay, yeah, great. Well, we'll edit that out. Okay, thank you. So, yeah, this section is show we go through a bunch of different things talking mainly about our great patrons and how, you know, they lift us up. They're the wind beneath our wings. That's right. And the first thing we like to do is the fact quote a question section, which is for the Sydney Schaumburg level supporters or above.

And this section actually has a jingle, go somewhere like this. Fact quote or question. Ding. I always remembers the ding and she always remembers the sing. And the way this works is, if you're on the Sydney Schaenberg level or above, you get to give us a fact, a quote, or a question, or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever you like. And then, yeah, I read them out.

without pre-reading. No pre-reading done here at all. And the first one, this week comes from Paul McNally. And Paul, and you also get to give yourself a title, I don't know if I mention that. Paul's title is Chief of Delivering of Shady Side Eye to Wildly Incorrect Statements. Oh. And Paul is offering a trivia question writing,

Hello, folks. Thought I'd try a trivia question for you all for something a little different. I think this is maybe the first. Yeah, I don't know if we've had a trivia. I love this. Might even spark a little theme going forward. Fingers on buzzers, please. Can any of you find a common thread between these songs?

Not like us by Kendrick Lamar. Do hast by Ramstein. Don't stop till you get enough by Michael Jackson. Gimmy, give me a man after midnight by Abba. The Imperial March from Star Wars. Nation Army by the White Stripes. Never going to give you up by Rick Astley. Highway to Hell by ACDC.

Jolene by Dolly Pardin. Teenagers by My Chemical Romance. Tub-thumping by Chubb. Chubba. And finally, Baby Shark by Pink Frog. Can you find a common thread between that incredible array of, dare I say, fantastic songs?

Some of them are like, they were definitely memes? Were they all different memes? Could they all, then I was thinking maybe they have all been sampled. Like, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme was sampled in a Madonna hit. But, yeah, what could it be that? That's a pretty broad range of songs and over a lot of time as well. Do they give us the answer or are we going to be tortured until their next question?

Let me read on. You don't have an answer? I don't, no, I can't think of anything. I don't have an answer. Let's find out what it is. With beats of between 100 and 120 beats per minute, all of the above songs are the perfect rhythm for CPR. What are the odds of that? That is crazy.

What are the odds? I mean, not that I would have put it together, but 9 to 5 is one. So that's my go-to for CPR. Which is interesting because Jolene was the one listed here. Yeah. Because staying alive is like the famous one, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what else is, but don't sing it out loud.

Another one bites the dust. Oh, yeah. Probably don't sing that out loud when you're... Bit of them. Another one bites the dust. Yeah, keep that in your head. But I go straight to Dolly 9 to 5. Pink Pony Club is also one for younger people.

That is quite incredible that that question came up today. That's wild. That's so cool. These have been allocated based on, you know, just timing. Yeah. A long while ago. As soon as he said 100 to 120, I was like, oh, no, oh, no. That's wild.

Imagine doing the Imperial March. That's pretty funny. Is that that one? Yeah. Don't, yeah. Paul goes on to say, so if you're ever learning CPR, you can choose your favorite. There's even a Spotify playlist called inappropriate CPR songs, but I don't think anyone would like to be revived to smack that.

by ACON. Do learn CPR people is genuinely the most important piece of first aid you can learn and it's not hard. You might end up being the single most important person in someone's life one day. Keep up the great content. As always, all the best, Paul. I can't believe that that's happened on this episode where we talked about the pioneer of CPR.

That's wild. Incredible. That's so cool. Let's see if the next. The next two are equally coincidental. Yeah. We are recording. Yes.

Yeah. When Dave's not here, it's the kind of question we've got to ask. Yeah, no, I've been watching and it's definitely, I can see. Which is a bit ironic because the last time we found out something that wasn't recording, who was it? Dave. Dave. Yeah. So I shouldn't be so hard on us.

But now we have to make sure that we're doing it perfectly because if then we can keep giving him shit for the one time he made a mistake. Yeah. If we also made the same mistake, we'd have to, like, be nice to him. Yeah, that's true. I simply refuse. I mean, technology is really not his go. He literally can't figure out how to get back online right now. That's why he's not here with us.

Yeah. He can't figure it out. So why do we trust him with recording our podcast? I don't think we should from now on. Agreed. If we ever hear from him again. Yeah, he's gone. Which at the moment, he's very busy in Canberra doing something not suss or mysterious.

No. Nothing to do with it. the feds. He's certainly not ratting us out, he kept saying. It's like, we never said you, we never suggested you were ratting us out, Dave. We also never done anything wrong. Yeah. Good luck riding out to perfect angels.

I was going to say princesses, but I meant angels. What a funny. You can be a perfect princess if you want. Yeah, but I think most princesses have. Imperfect. Yeah. They got things to answer for. The next one in the fact quarter question comes from Katie, Shannon Sharp.

Okay. Emeritus, is that how he said? Emeritus Professor of Dugoon. Oh. Amaritis? David, no. One of those classic words I've seen written down for sure. Now, Katie's asking a question writing, it doesn't get easier.

Hey, tre bien, three, tre bien, three. But you're so good at French. Oh, French, sorry, let me have it go again. Eh, trebion three. There you go. I was wondering. Oh, no, I could do that. I was wondering who you imagine you are talking to when delivering a report.

Is it just the to the other two in the room? Or do you imagine a large listening audience? Or maybe a smaller audience of people you know. I can't really answer my own question, which we always encourage question asks us to do. The closest thing I've done to podcasting would be an online Zoom lessons that I gave a bunch of teens who had their cameras turned off. Not quite the same thing. I'll say, I can answer. I'm just talking to Jess and Dave.

Yeah, same. I'm not thinking about an audience at all. No offense. I'm thinking about you and I'm writing it in terms of like, oh, that's a funny bit or that'll be a fun reveal or something like that. But in the room, I'm just talking to Matt and Dave. Yes. I think it would, yeah, I don't know what would happen

if I was picturing all the people listening. Was it, were you up to seven or eight? Geez, I don't know with that high, are we? Maybe not. But, yeah, I mean, the live shows, obviously, I'm delivering that to the, again, to people in the room, but that is more audience. Yes, that feels like a performance, the live shows, these don't feel like a performance. No. If that makes sense.

Yeah, I do. Occasionally I remember that Will Anderson might be listening. Yeah. And I feel a deep shame. Yes. I'm like, oh, I wish she wasn't hearing me like this. Yeah. Occasionally I say something about my dad and then I go, I hope he's not listening.

But yeah, I don't know if that would be a surprising answer. I would be curious to hear what Dave had to say, but I'm guessing probably be the same as us. Well, I'm usually thinking about other than live shows, like that's something about the audience. The rest of my days, I'm thinking about Matt and Dave. Like I'm making toast, I'm thinking about Matt and Dave. I'm going to bed, I'm thinking about Matt and Dave.

Yes. That's why our group chat is always going off. because it's often asked our thoughts just aren't thinking of you. Yeah. And then I heart react to that. Go for a walk thinking of you? Yeah.

Gone for a walk. Are you guys going for a walk? It's almost like we're going for a walk together. Should we go for a walk together? Should we go for a walk together? Doesn't matter. I'll talk to you later. Yeah.

Sorry, I've finished my walk. I'm sorry if you wanted to come. I'll go on another one if you want to go on a walk. You know. Yeah. Stuff like that. Thank you so much for that question. Katie.

Last one this week comes from Paul Meller, aka commandant of terrible jokes. And Paul's listed his category as shit joke. Okay, we'll see. We'll see. Paul Wright's hello, guys. So a few years ago, on a team building event with work, we had a game of each telling the group a shit joke.

There was alcohol involved, but still no excuse for mine. Here is the one I told. Question, what is white with a tartan scarf and stands in the corner of the kitchen? Answer Rupert the fridge He said Like I said It is shit

I think I heard it when I was but a boy Do you guys have any shit jokes Oh and thank you For all the laughs Laughs in 2025 Often I find myself giggling out loud And it is when you guys Are on a riff

About something silly on the pod Your energy has been amazing recently All the best for 2026 Encana Saints Paul I think it's because we finally started to get to know each other and dare I say like each other. Jeez, that was a lucky. Yes, right?

Because some people you meet them and you like them immediately. And others takes a good nine, ten years. But here we are very much in like and really hitting a good stride. Yes. Now, what do you think of the joke? I think I agree to shit. I don't get it. Yes, so I think it is shit.

So Rupert the Bear was a cartoon character. Who wore a tartan scarf. Okay. Now that's in context I didn't have. Okay. That is, that is, well, it's not as shit as I had originally thought, but it's still a shit joke. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Do I have a shit joke for you? No. No. Unfortunately, I've, I spent a good eight years as a professional stand-up comedian. Yeah, they're all really good. So I don't know bad jokes. And if I've ever heard them, I've immediately deleted the

them from my brain. So unfortunately, I only know very, very good jokes. Matt, you'd know a few shitty ones, though. Yeah, well, I mean, I think I already told one this episode about the Napo baby plumber. Yeah. I mean, is it even a joke? I don't know. I think the shittest jokes, you're like, is that a joke? Yeah, was that funny? Yeah. I can't. My favorite joke's the ones you have to immediately explain. I think that makes it very funny. A bad joke. I'll just I'll just steal one from the internet. Yeah, first thing you see that says bad joke. This is Reader's Digest, 171 bad jokes.

But I'll just read the first one. Why do you need that many bad jokes? Oh my God, I've heard of the first two. Great. Okay, well, it's a classic. Knock Knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow.

My favorite. Interrupting cow. No. Yeah, that's genuinely one of my favorite jokes. Yeah. I just think it's so dumb. Yeah, it is. It's like if you're an American when you go to the bathroom,

an American when you come out, what are you in the bathroom? European. That feels very just-coded, actually. Because it's about piss and I love piss. In brackets, compliment. Yeah, oh no, I took it as one. That's why I faced it this.

It's just a cute joke. It's just cute. It's a bit of fun. Thank you so much, Paul, Katie and Paul. Paul sandwich. Katie Sandwich. Paul's the bread. Yeah, you're not talking about, like,

You know what I'm having a bread sandwich. Sorry. Fucking idiot, Jess. Idiot. Oh, so stupid. What am I thinking? All right, so that brings us to where we thank a few of other great Patreon supporters. Now, Jess, you normally come up with a game based on the topic.

You've got any thoughts this week? I have pulled up a random vehicle generator. Oh, great. This is the vehicle, because I've driven an ambulance, this is the big vehicle they've driven. Okay, great. And if it ends up being a small thing, but it's actually. a big version of it. What do you think, though, about as a tweak to that,

it's the biggest vehicle they've driven, but it's also the one they're starting their own ambulance service with. Love it, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. All right. So, which makes sense, they've just picked the biggest vehicle they've driven to be their ambulance. And the ambulance service these days have helicopters. You know, it's not just the classic sort of sprinter van

style now. You know, you can get, like, this is what a paramedic, taught me and I've never fact-checked it but he says you know the two places you can get a blood transfusion in Australia is the hospital and the helicopters really the helicopters they're like micah paramedics and then they have like extra training on top of that they're like some of the most highly trained medical professionals and they can fly a chopper yeah well there was a pilot hopefully what happens if they can't find a pilot they must they must also know how to fly if they got to I think it's more that the pilots are pretty well trained in the first aid stuff,

rather than that paramedics are trained in the piloting. So it's sort of like the Armageddon conundrum. Yes. Do you train the drillers? Yes. How to be astronauts or the astronauts how to be drillers. Yeah, and obviously, drilling is the harder task there. Yeah, like Ben Affleck said in the...

And the directors cut the DVD, it's extras. He made a good point. It's just like that. Anyway, it's a good fun fact that might be wrong. I'll give you the place and a name of these people and you'll give them an automobile. I'm ready. First up from Address Unknown can only shoot from deep within the fortress of the miles.

Thanks so much for your support. Jake T. Jake T is introducing the ambulance that is a 2022 Accura ARX-06 race car. Don't be confused by race car. It is in fact a train. What? Yeah, I know. I'm going to Google.

That is, when you said random, I mean, that's random. bro. Thank you so much, Jake T. Next up from Leighton Buzzard. No, it is a race car. But for some reason, the picture is a train. From Leighton Buzzard in Great Britain. Thank you so much.

T. Marston. A semi-trailer. A Volvo F.H. 16. Yeah, you can move. You can move a few corpses and that. Oh, yeah, yeah. I made living corpses.

Living corpses. Like the cops call them. It's less for really emergency stuff because we could obviously carry so many people. Yes. So it's just sort of like, just wait. We'll get to the hospital eventually, but it will be about eight hours from now. From, again, address, I know, can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles. Please, welcome.

And thank you, Sarah Elizabeth Harney. A 2010 Holden Cruise. Oh. Just a great sedan. Yeah. It's pretty compact for a sedan. Yeah. Yeah, you know.

But it will get there faster, weave through traffic. I don't know how. They got a good reputation, the cruise. Next up, I have a feeling they don't, but I don't want to get sued by Holden. No. You know, a great Australian brand. I don't want to be sued by Holden. No.

So let's move on. Again, from Address I know, another mole person. Thank you so much to Poopie But McGeerson on McGregerson. Poopin' butt McGregerson. Pippie Butt McGregerson. A 1978 Jeep wagon here. Oh, now we get, I think that's a great option. Yeah, and in the picture, it's like driving across some sandy dunes, and I think, like, because we're, you know, accidents happen anywhere.

Yeah. That's great stuff. That's really handy to have poopie butt. Again, address unknown. What's the go with people who signed up whatever day this was and not wanting to give away their address? This is early in in 2026 these people signed up Well another mole person But are they a mole or are they a different kind of whole dwelling animal

It's James Fox Oh, that was great Thank you so much Considering you're not feeling your best That was quite sharp Thanks And James is going back to the old school Because he is bringing in a 1904

Oldsmobile runabout One of these little fancy doodads It's not a lot of space for a patient, nor to be working on said patient. But you could just sort of lie in across the back. Instead of the saura, he'll have that hauga, hauga, like honkinghorn. I wrote a wuga in a message to Dave yesterday, and he said, I heard that in your voice. And I thought, thank you so much. Can you put it in your voice now?

A uga. You do that sounds very well. Thank you so much, James Fox. from Cumberland Foreside in M.E., Maine maybe? No, it doesn't matter. In the United States. Thank you so much. Maureen Fitzgerald.

Maureen's like, I want to help people who are sick and also bushfires. They got a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Oh, my God. Now that's got to be the pick so far. It's not quite as maneuverable, like a Holden, cruise, which I've just been told by our lawyers is a fantastic automobile. Available at your local Holden dealer. MEE does seem to be Maine.

Maine, okay. Sorry, I doubted you. Sorry, you doubted you and I didn't back you up. Well, it just feels like it shouldn't be. Agreed. I guess I've taken the first and last letters of it, but... But that's confusing. Yeah.

The problem is they've picked so many state names to being with M. There might be eight of them. Too many. Too many. Come on, guys. You've got 50 states, eight of them. so with M. Yeah.

It's a real problem. Use some other letters. Have you used Q? They haven't. There's no Q. Before we use another M. Do you know what I mean? They haven't even used B.

Oh, come on, guys. There's not a single B state from memory. How many letters are there in the alphabet? 26. Right. So you've got a nice even spread. You could have two per letter. Yeah.

You could have QA and QB. Two states. Cuba. Cuba. You could have Cuba. Don't give them ideas. They're annexing things left around the moment. Don't worry about it.

Or talking about it. Anyway, from, I should say, Maureen, thanks so much. Thank you, Maureen. And thank you for your help during the bushfires. Beautiful spot up in Maine. I believe it, never been. Never been. It looks like it from photos.

Looks beautiful. Yeah. From Houston, Texas. Thank you so much to Becky May. This one might actually be kind of helpful. A Chrysler P.T. Cruiser. Oh, yeah. You know?

Yeah. Almost looks like a hearse. It's like a classic-looking, It sort of got the oldmobile vibe of an old car, but it's been updated. That's right. To have like a roof and stuff. Take the back seats out. There you go.

You got yourself plenty of space for paramedics to luxurier. You know, cruising for corpses. That's right. Living corpses. Thank you so much, Becky. From Brentwood in New York in the United States. Thank you so much. Mike Riley.

Mike's gone for a front heavy vehicle instead of a back heavy one. Oh, Penny Farthing. Gone for a Buick skyline. You look Skyluck, second guess. Yeah. Can I have a look at how that's front heavy? Yep. Oh, big nose on it.

Oh, man, that's a fucking sexy car. Holy shit. Yeah. Could I have that once you're done with it, Mike? I don't know. No, because the way you're talking about it makes me feel like you're going to do something weird. You think I'm going to fuck that car? I think you're going to try and fuck that car.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, no, I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page. Yeah, okay, I guess. It's up to Mike, but. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I'd treat that, I'd treat that car just right.

You can fuck a car respectfully. No, I know, but that's like if it wants me to. Great. You're both having a good time. And I don't think a car can really give consent like that. So you better not then. I think so. Yeah.

Let's assume it's a no then. Yeah. If it's not an enthusiastic guess, then it's a no. Yeah. And that's an important lesson. Yeah. And that's a really well-made point. I think we should send this clip out to universities where that message really needs to get.

And I would say even if you've changed your car's horn to have like a novelty sound saying, yes, a please. Or go, go, go or anything like that. That doesn't count. No one's like, do me daddy. Do me daddy. Do me daddy. who had liked that. Oh, yeah, yeah.

No one's like it. I realized after I said, I was insulting you, not on famous. I mean, I think we all accept that that's not turning anyone on, me saying, do me daddy. Okay, I need you to stop this. You started it and you stopped it. I'm getting really turned on and it's not appropriate at work. And that means finally again, another mole person from address unknown.

It's me and mo. coming in at $350 for the Lego McLaren MCL 39 F1 car. A Lego. Yeah, I thought it would be pretty funny. I googled Lego race cars. $350 for it.

That's an expensive automobile. You could buy a real car for less than that. It wouldn't be good, but it would be more effective as a car than that one. But I mean, Lego people need ambulances as well. Oh, that's true. Is there a Lego ambulance? There's got to be.

There's got to be many. I want to get one. That's cute. While you're looking that up, I'm going to say thank you so much to Miami or Miyamu, Mike, Becky, Maureen, James Poopi Butt, Sarah T, and Jake. Now, what have we got left? I actually think I looked ahead. We don't have any triptage inductees this week, but we do have a triple triptage inductee, interestingly.

So, Triptage Club, if you don't know, that's people who have been on the shoutout level or above for three straight years. The Triple Triptage Club is actually for people who have been on the shoutout level or above for nine straight years. Absolutely crazy. And we have one inductee this week. Now, the way this works is, I believe Dave normally gives them a salute. So I'll do the salute this week. And Jess, you give them something as well.

A kiss. A kiss. And I also give them a, what am I thinking, Jess? You give them custodianship, is that the right word? That's right. Of an episode. That's right. Okay.

A very important role that we hope they take very seriously and take good care of that episode. Yes. There's an idea suggested by Martin Drabbock Hampshire. And I'll eventually stop thanking you for your idea, Martin. I apologize. This is an ongoing thank you. Yeah. If you need the thank you all the time, Martin, it's like, who did you do this for? I would also.

You or for the people? I would also say that Martin's never asked to be thanked. Who are you doing this for, Martin? Are you doing it for the greater good, for the do-go-on community? Or are you doing it for you, Martin? Something to think about, Martin. Marty, look at us. Martin, thank you so much for a fantastic suggestion. We really appreciate it, yeah.

But I'd have a look in the mirror. Yeah. And then, yeah, if it's okay with you, I might start to forget to do that. Maybe every now and then, bring it up, but yeah, don't. Maybe I won't. I've got your name and your message on this spreadsheet, but I just don't always understand. At some point, we're going to have to use that cell for something else. You know what I mean?

That's our spreadsheets work. Yeah, exactly. They get filled up if you're doing it right. Ayo. Do me, daddy. Do me, daddy. See, no, gross when I do it. All right.

So let me welcome in to the triple triptitch club. It's actually a secret door from inside the triptych club. It's a golden door. And once you're in there, like Leonardo, Da Vinci and DiCaprio, sort of tag team you in however, I mean in painting. Yeah, they each have a brush. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I don't know why that wasn't clear when I said they tag team you.

I was just, no. Would you all bind in a weird place? Or if you hear someone say these two people tag team here, you think immediately you don't think about painting? Wishfully. I was thinking of something else. Okay. Well, I'm afraid not. From those two stone cold hoddies?

That's true. And, yeah, so we've got one person who's getting the key to the door right now. He is from Minneapolis in Minnesota, in the United States, the rightful owner of the MN. code. You can see that. That one makes sense. Welcome into the club. Leon. Well, your surname isn't on there. It's only in your email just. I don't want to docks you. But it starts with an L. Leon L. Now, you're going to do this salute?

A compliment and a salute. You have fantastic head salute. I was going to say hair. I'm like, I don't want to I'll say hair. You have fantastic hair. Do you see how I like how quickly I was able to... Yeah, pivot. You have fantastic hair.

Salute. You have fantastic hair. I don't think the camera caught the kiss. It did, it did, it did, you sure. And you have now got the custodianship of episode 14, Triple J's hottest 100. Whoa. Which is now a...

Ten years out of date. And seven years after, almost to the day that that came out, I hosted the hottest 100. So cool. Isn't that crazy? So cool. I'll never get over it. And you can't make me.

Try though. Do me, Daddy. Are they just only for the patrons who can watch, I'm pushing the horn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do me, Daddy? I'm perfecting the voice. Can you do it a bit more like a sweet. A sweetest chef?

Do me daddy. Is that more like a sweetest chef? Because it has to like for it to be like a horn. Yeah. Do me daddy. Do me daddy. Do me daddy. I don't like it as much.

I liked it before when it was. Do me daddy. Ooh. I want to stop now. Yeah, that's a good idea. Welcome into the club. Leo, make yourself at home. Say hello to the two Leo's.

And yeah. They'll look after you. Oh, yeah, they will. Now, Jess, is there anything we need to tell people before we go? They can suggest a topic. You can do that. There's a link in the show notes. It's also on our website, which is dogoonpod.com.

And you can find us on social media, which is at dogo on pod or dogo on podcast on TikTok. Yes. Please, follow us. Like and subscribe. Sign up to our mailing list. So that we can come to a city near you. Yeah, which we would really love to do. And hopefully we'll have some exciting news soon.

has been working away in the background, talking to a few venues in cities we've never been before. I know, very exciting. So stay tuned for that. But if you want to be involved, yes, I'm up to that mailing list. Dave really does use the data. Yeah, I was going to be too gross to say the data,

but no, you did. And you know that, you know, I don't want, I think of them as people, not numbers. I think of, I think of this as a business, not a community. Well, I'm almost the opposite of that. I like to crunch the number. numbers. Yeah, you do love to crunch. And I ignore the people. I say, get out of my way, you pleb. Give me your money and fuck off, I say. Yeah. I'm a capitalist pig. You are. You're a capo pig.

Always a pleasure, Jess Perkins. Great report today. Such an inspiring story. Let's see that on the big screen. Oh my God. It does feel cinematic, doesn't it? And yeah, so cool that it was like you've got the direct link to that as well. It feels like you're going to end up. With more qualifications than anyone in the world. I just collect them. Yeah. I collect them. I love that.

I've got an interest in like, I reckon I'll end up somewhere vaguely medical at some point. Anyway. Giz hospital. Probably to the Giz hospital and you'll be like, I don't know, the last nurse couldn't get it out of me. And I'll say, well, that's why they send me in, bud. Yeah. I'll get that. I'll get that jizz out of you.

No worries. And you just start, you put punching, like boxing gloves on? Yeah. And I punch you in the dick. So. You punch it out. I'll punch one out for you, mate. All right, anyway, I think that's the end of the episode.

We need Dave. You boot his baby home. Thanks, what does he say? Thanks so much for joining us, everyone. We'll see you next week here at Dugo with another great report. Until then, I'll say goodbye. Later. Bye!

I think we did just fine without him. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, Oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never, will never miss out.

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