Just after 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Avraham Levy was returning home from staffing an all-night municipal election vote-count in the city of Tel Mond. He was driving one of the organization’s ambulances back from the event when he received an emergency alert from dispatch directing him to a man who had suffered a severe head injury while waiting for the train at Tel Aviv’s Savidor station. In spite of being on duty for more than 12 hours already, Levy flicked on the lights and sirens and headed to the train station a kilometer away. While en route, the dispatcher alerted Levy that CPR was in progress.

Levy arrived a few minutes later and was greeted by one of the station’s security officers who directed him to where other security personnel had begun to perform CPR on the unconscious man lying on the platform. The security team had attached a defibrillator but were having difficulty with the correct operation of it. Levy quickly guided them through the last remaining steps of the proper application while he began compression.

The defibrillator delivered two shocks to the patient that were interspersed with Levy administering chest compressions. A few minutes later a team from a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived just as Levy managed to regain a pulse. Together with the ambulance team Levy helped transport the now semi-conscious man out of the train station and onto the ambulance so that he could be taken to the hospital for further care.

“I’m so proud to be a part of United Hatzalah. It is an organization that is entirely based on giving. Even though I was tired from the shift at the election the night before, I knew that I was able to help this man. Whenever I arrive at an emergency requiring CPR I am always saddened if the CPR is unsuccessful. But when a CPR is successful, and I know that I have helped another person, it fills me with a sense of pride and joy and makes the long shifts and self-sacrifice all worth it. That is what we are here for, to help those around us during their hour of need.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)