United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Alan Malka on Sunday morning saved the life of an infant girl when he pulled her from a locked, hot car on Aharonovitz Street in Petach Tikvah.
“I was working at my job in the Municipality when I received an emergency alert from United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center regarding a young child locked in a hot car on Aharonovitz Street right nearby. I drove down Sokolov Street on my ambucycle and was at the scene in less than a minute,” Malka reported.
“When I arrived, the father of the young girl was very agitated and told me that his daughter had been locked in the car after he accidentally left the keys inside. I pulled my special equipment that I use to open locked cars, and within 15 seconds I had the door of the car open and picked up the infant girl. I handed her to her father who embraced her warmly. I then performed a quick medical check. Thankfully, all of the girl’s vital signs checked out. She was in good condition.
“Her father couldn’t thank me enough, and I smiled and told him that I was happy to help and that it was all part of the job.
“This is one of the many emergency calls that I have gone to that make all of the training and volunteering worthwhile.
“I’ve been volunteering with United Hatzalah for the past 11 years, and this isn’t the first child that I have rescued from a hot car. One month over the summer I had three instances like this. Each one is special and each is incredibly important as being locked in a hot car can be fatal to a child in a matter of minutes.
“I am a family man. I have been married for more than 20 years and have a bunch of teenagers at home. I no longer have small children, but I know what it means to be a parent and to be having an emergency. Thankful, my wife has always supported me as a volunteer, as have my children. Volunteering as an EMT is one of the joys of my life, especially in situations like these, where I can save a young child from an irreparable damage or even death.”