Avraham Levi is a self-employed entrepreneur who works full time, has a wife and two children and volunteers as an EMT with United Hatzalah. This past month in January, Levi broke records when he responded to 236 emergency calls in just one month. “So far, this is the record for any individual volunteer EMT with our organization,” said Lazar Hyman, Vice President of the organization.

“When we looked at our monthly reports for January we noticed that Levi had broken a record. In simple math, Levi responded to approximately 8 emergency calls per day, and this is the work of a volunteer. He doesn’t get paid for this.”

Levi lives in Netanya and volunteers as one of the organization’s 500 ambucycle drivers. Levi reacted to the news of his record-breaking month by saying, “This is very important work. I don’t count the number of emergency calls that I respond to. Whenever I hear a call from the dispatch and command center about a medical emergency in my area, I go. I only recognized just how many people I helped recently when the organization called me and told me that I had broken the record for the month. I run my own business in the heart of Tel Aviv, that is how I can allow myself to respond to so many calls and save this many people.”

Levi told of how he began working with United Hatzalah. “I began working with the organization approximately two years ago. At the time, I had been riding my motorcycle for a while, when one day, during a frightful rainstorm I stopped under an underpass on a highway. A United Hatzalah ambucycle driver stopped next to me and we began talking about his bike. He told me that he was an EMT with United Hatzalah and I asked him what the organization does and what it means to be a volunteer there. He explained that it is a volunteer organization whose goal is to provide first aid and emergency medical response in the first few critical moments before an ambulance can arrive. Whenever a medical emergency occurs, the dispatch center notifies the closest volunteer EMS personnel to the incident, all of whom are fully equipped with fully stocked advanced medical kits.”

“Before we went our separate ways he gave me the emergency number of the organization, 1221. I called and within a month I began an EMT training course. After a six-month training course, and another few months of ride-along training calls I began officially volunteering as an EMT and was able to respond to medical emergencies on my own. I am truly in love with this work, and it is my ‘other’ calling”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem / Photo Credit: United Hatzalah)