United Hatzalah’s National Dispatch Center in Jerusalem received a call regarding a three-year-old girl who had drowned in a private pool in Eilat. The center immediately dispatched the closest responders to the incident. The responders, with full medical equipment, arrived in less than three minutes from the time the call went out and succeeded in resuscitating the young girl. She regained full consciousness and was transported to Yosef Tal Hospital in Eilat for further care and observation.

Or Meir Maimon, a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT and one of the first responders on the scene reported, “When I arrived at the scene I found the young girl unconscious after she had drowned in the pool of the private villa that she was staying in with her family during their vacation. Miraculously, during the CPR procedure that I performed together with other United Hatzalah volunteers from the ambucycle unit who had arrived, the girl fully regained consciousness and was then transported to the hospital for continuing treatment and observation.”

The second call came into the dispatch center shortly after the first. This time the drowning victim was a four-year-old boy who was vacationing with his family at a hotel in the Dead Sea area. He too was revived and is currently in moderate condition.

United Hatzalah volunteer EMTs, Shlomo and Yitzchak Bensimon responded to the call as they were staying in the same hotel as the drowning victim’s family.

Following the incident, Yitzchak said, “Over the past few days, we have been staying in the same hotel as the family at the Dead Sea. We received a call from United Hatzalah’s dispatch center alerting us that there was a young boy who had drowned in the hotel pool. We rushed down from our room with a full complement of medical gear, arrived at the scene and began performing CPR within 30 seconds of receiving the call. The CPR was effective and the boy is in moderate but stable condition.”

In both cases, the victims, from chareidi families, were transported to hospitals in MDA ambulances.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)