Last Tuesday at 1:00 AM, Avraham Yudkowsky, a United Hatzalah volunteer who lives in Givat Ze’ev, was in the middle of a personal visit to Rishon Lezion when he received an alert to a medical emergency occurring a few blocks away from his location. A passerby saw something suspicious and called emergency services to check it out.
As Avraham was on his way in his car with the blinkers flashing, he received a second alert, this time to a cardiac arrest that took place just a few hundred meters from his location on Sedot Street. Avraham quickly turned around on the empty street and passed by an ambulance that had been waiting at the corner. The ambulance driver, seeing that Avraham had his lights flashing, called his dispatch to see if there was an emergency in the area and was given an affirmative answer. He flicked on his emergency lights and also rushed to the location of the cardiac arrest.
After Avraham had arrived, he was joined moments later by the ambulance driver who was alone, and the two EMTs rushed inside the apartment to find a man in his early sixties without a pulse who also wasn’t breathing. The EMTs attached a defibrillator, began chest compressions and provided the patient with assisted ventilation. Two other United Hatzalah volunteer EMTs, both from out of town – Menachem Binder from Beit Shemesh, and Binyamin Greenman from Bnei Brak, arrived a few minutes later and joined the CPR effort.
“The ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after I did,” explained Yudkowsky. “We worked together as a team and treated the man. After about 25 minutes, the man’s pulse came back. I was surprised that we succeeded at the CPR even though the defibrillator didn’t suggest a shock. The man’s blood pressure returned to a very acceptable level and once he was stable enough, we loaded him into the ambulance to be transported to the hospital.”
Yudkowsky reflected on the rescue: “It’s always uplifting to be able to save a life, but it is especially inspiring for me to work together with United Hatzalah volunteers who hail from three different cities and save a life in a city that isn’t our own. Being able to respond to any emergency, anywhere, at any time, even when I’m in a different city, it really inspired me and I am proud to be part of an organization that saves the lives of people across the country, no matter who and where.”