EMS West - Kersey Office

05/22/2026

Congratulations!

05/22/2026

Congratulations!

05/20/2026

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Glenn Cannon’s interest in EMS began when he was a young man in college in Indiana PA. On one fateful night a man drove his car into a tree in front of one of Indiana’s fraternity houses. Glenn was there and went to the man’s aid. He found him not breathing and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the local ambulance arrived. The man’s life was saved thanks to Glenn’s quick action and the work of the Citizen’s Ambulance service personnel, including Jerry Esposito. Glenn knew at that moment that he wanted to be involved in the work of saving lives.

Shortly after, Glenn signed up with Citizens’ working on the ambulance. He was able to take part in the first CPR class ever offered by Dr. Peter Safar. While in college, Glenn became increasingly involved in the field of EMS. He worked closely with Esposito, Safar and Dr. Don Benson on designing the first ambulance that allowed a seat to be placed at the head of the patient for proper airway maintenance during transit. He also helped train the new Freedom House Ambulance personnel who traveled to Indiana County to work in Citizens’ vehicles.

After college, Glenn returned to Pittsburgh and became involved in the creation of the first EMS council in 1972 where he was the deputy direct under Esposito’s leadership. The Allegheny County Council on Emergency Medical and Health Services, later known as EMSI (and now EMS West), developed the process of training and certifying ambulance personnel as EMTs. While with the Council, Glenn was active in helping many communities secure funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Act to help fund training programs and purchase new vehicles and equipment. It was also during this time that Glenn helped many community colleges and vo-tech schools create EMT training programs, including the first EMT instructor course at Community College of Allegheny County.

In 1975, Glenn was hired by the City of Pittsburgh to plan, develop and implement a new advanced life support ambulance system. He was named the director of the newly formed City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and oversaw the transition from the old “rapid transit” police ambulance service to the highly sophisticated ambulance service staffed by paramedics trained in emergency medicine. The paramedics used radio-equipped “super ambulances” that were categorized as the first mobile intensive care units to operate city-wide out of five stations in the West End, South Hills, North Side, East End and Hill District areas of the city.

Glenn remained active in rescue and other non-traditional ambulance work. He was able to successfully expand the EMS service into the areas of paramedic rescue, river rescue, trench and specialized rescue. He also created the City of Pittsburgh’s first hazardous materials response team, the first in Pennsylvania.

Glenn worked with several of the early physician pioneers to bring about quality prehospital emergency care in the days before the State EMS Act and State paramedic certification. He also worked with Dr. Sol Edelstein and Dr. Nancy Caroline on developing a medical command system that included emergency physicians in the prehospital process of service delivery. The concept grew rapidly into what is todays’ Center for Emergency Medicine and the affiliated emergency residency,

In the mid-1980s, Glenn was named the City of Pittsburgh Public Safety Director where he continued this advocacy for EMS, from training 911 call takers in giving pre-arrival instructions to callers in need, to adding the fire department first responders to the EMS system.

Glenn is on the far right in this archived photo.

05/19/2026

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Jerry Esposito was a visionary. Undoubtedly one of the major leaders of EMS in Pennsylvania, Jerry’s vision influenced thousands of people, who proudly call him their mentor and their friend for the way he touched their lives.

Credited with developing a common model for providing community emergency care that has been adopted by ambulance services nationwide, Esposito was one of the fathers of modern-day EMS in Pennsylvania. He is well known for his development and design of ambulances that are on the road today. And, most importantly, Esposito was a leader in elevating the role of the EMT to its current professional status.

Esposito’s legacy began in WWII, when he and his wife Elizabeth operated an ambulance service out of their Punxsutawney home. Using the family station wagon as an ambulance, Esposito saw firsthand what his patients needed during that critical time between home and hospital. What he saw in the 1950s and 1960s was an antiquated system in which care did not begin until the patients were wheeled into the emergency room at the hospital.

Ambulance services were merely speedy transportation. But Esposito knew there was a role for qualified professionals to be trained to provide prehospital medical care, especially for those patients where this precious time spent in an ambulance meant the difference between life and death.

So Esposito did something about it. He worked with a local womens’ civic grout to establish Citizens’ Ambulance Service (CAS) in Indiana in 1964. There he formulated the idea for a community-owned ambulance service fueled by annual subscriptions from local citizens. Later, he incorporated a relatively new idea in EMS: offering a countywide service where rural pockets could be aided by the larger station in the service area.

While at Citizens’, Esposito actively developed training curriculums and standards for EMTs and paramedics who would be given the knowledge and expertise to provide advanced life support on the road. While similar programs were being developed nationwide, Esposito was the first to introduce such a concept in the western Pennsylvania area. He also established the first radio communication between ambulance crews and a base hospital. Esposito was also credited with providing leadership, as his service was one of the first to render successful field cardiac defibrillation.

Along with Dr. Peter Safar, Esposito helped to redesign early ambulances. In the 1960s, ambulances were utility vehicles that just provided simple transportation.

As an advocate for making the EMS role one that is based on extensive training and expertise, he logged a lifetime of hours training many of the men and women who are leaders in EMS throughout the country.

Esposito founded the Pennsylvania Ambulance Association and the Paramedical Journal and organized and directed the Allegheny County Council of Emergency Health Services, formerly known as the Emergency Medical Service Institute (EMSI) and now EMS West. This was the first council of its type in the United States that provided representation by all county EMS services on its regional board.

Jerry was also instrumental in the development of the Freedom House project where unemployed black men from a disadvantaged district of Pittsburgh were training to be ambulance attendants. He authored numerous articles published in national EMS journals and was honored with the 1985 Distinguished Achievement Award by the American Trauma Society and the Lifetime Achievement Award by EMS West (later named the Jerry Esposito EMS Lifetime Achievement Award).

05/19/2026

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

The world of emergency medical services would not be what it is today if not for the innovative thinking, research and hard work of Dr. Peter Safar. An anesthesiologist by training, Dr. Safar revolutionized emergency care and was known as the father of modern-day cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

An innovator and a mentor, Dr. Safar is best known for his work in CPR in the 1950s and 1960s that set the standard and is still being used today. At that time, he initiated the change from manual to mouth-to-mouth artificial ventilation worldwide. In experiments on human volunteers, he developed CPR step A and step B, then combined the two steps into basic life support. Several years later, he extended CPR to include the nine steps of basic, advanced and prolonged life support. He also co-initiated modern life support first aid, resuscitation and intensive critical care medicine.

He took his newfound knowledge of CPR outside of the hospital and made a commitment to developing methods that could be used by non-medical personnel. These visionary steps led to today’s understanding by the public of the need-to-know CPR in the case of an emergency where medical personnel are not immediately available.

Working side by side with Jerry Esposito, he helped create the first guidelines for community-wide emergency medical services. Together they developed the national standards for ambulance design and equipment, revolutionizing the concept of medical transport. They were also involved in extensive emergency medical technician and paramedic training, including starting basic and advanced ambulance attendants training through the Freedom House Project in Pittsburgh.

In addition to his presence in worldwide medical and EMS affairs, Dr. Safar was an author, editor and co-editor of the first textbooks on respiratory therapy, CPCR and emergency medicine. He authored 1,389 articles for professional publication, wrote more than 30 books and manuals, and published more than 300 abstracts.

After his retirement in 1979, Dr. Safar founded the International Resuscitation Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, where he mentored 60 physicians and 30 medical student research fellows. And was eventually renamed as the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research. Dr. Safar remained involved in research programs on cardiac arrest, trauma and suspended animation for many years.

05/19/2026

05/19/2026

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

As an anesthesiologist, Dr. Don Benson spent his lifetime medically maintaining his patients’ vital systems, from airways to pulmonary care to ventilation. It’s this anesthesiology training that led him to his lifelong interest and involvement in the care of critically ill patients – both in the operating room and on the streets.

As early as his days in medical school in the 1960s, Dr. Benson had a keen understanding and need to take what he was learning every day in the hospital setting and transferring to the EMS care that he knew in his heart was a real possibility.

As a teenager, Dr. Benson began a long and fulfilling career when, as a Boy Scout, he learned basic water rescue. This sparked an interest that led to him attending waterfront school where he learned the basics of manual respiration and mouth-to mouth respiration.

When he attended Georgetown University School of Medicine, CPR was just starting to be introduced in the operating room. Dr Benson’s earlier training in this area coupled with his newfound use in the OR led him to a revelation that the basics of anesthesiology in a hospital could be transferred to saving lives out of the hospital setting.

This led Dr. Benson to Dr. Safar who offered critical care anesthesiology residency at the University of Pittsburgh.

While working with Dr. Safar, Dr Benson became involved with the Freedom House project. He helped develop a curriculum that eventually led to the basic standards for what today’s EMT training is. He also became involved with Dr. Safar and Jerry Espsito’s establishment of the production of ambulances based on the Freedom House standards he was instrumental in developing.

After serving several years in active duty in the Air Force, Dr. Benson returned to the Freedom House in 1971 where he was asked to develop a more advanced paramedic program in Allegheny County. He turned to the Volunteer Fire Departments and started working with the Elfinwild Fire Department, where he trained them in advanced medical work, administering IVs and using defibrillators. There, he worked closely with Dr. Jesse Weigle, director of the Emergency Department at North Hills Passavant Hospital and Ralph Obenoff, chief of the Elfinwild Fire Department, to develop the first ALS suburban volunteer service where firemen were trained as paramedics.

In this picture, Dr. Benson is third from the right.

05/13/2026

Our partners at AHN have released their EMS week activities.

🚨 Celebrating Our EMS Heroes During EMS Week! 🚨
At AHN and AHN Prehospital Care Services, we are incredibly grateful for the dedication and tireless work of our EMS partners across the region. You are the frontline heroes, and your commitment to improving patient outcomes truly makes a difference every single day.
To show our appreciation, we've planned a week of special events and meals at various AHN facilities from May 17th - 22nd, 2026 to celebrate you, our valued EMS professionals!
We invite you to join us for breakfast, lunch, dinner gatherings, and even food trucks at participating hospitals throughout the week. It's our small way of saying THANK YOU for your partnership and for everything you do for our communities.
Check out the full schedule on our flyer to see events happening near you! We can't wait to celebrate with you.

05/13/2026

Information on an Active Shooter Incident Management course in late June.