Vered and Yossi Amir, 46 and 55 respectively, are a married couple living in Rosh HaAyin who volunteer together as United Hatzalah.
Rosh HaAyin, in central Israel, is the source of the Yarkon River, which flows to the Mediterranean through Tel Aviv. Vered works at Meir hospital in nearby Kfar Saba, Yossi works for a high-tech company. The two respond to medical emergencies in their neighborhood and throughout the city of Rosh HaAyin, Vered as a midwife and Yossi as an EMT.
On Monday at 4 in the morning a week ago, the couple received an emergency alert about active labor taking place a few minutes’ drive away from their home. Vered and Yossi jumped out of bed, threw on their United Hatzalah vests, and rushed to their car, arriving in under four minutes. They found a mobile intensive care unit (MICU) ambulance already on the scene—the ambulance station is closer to the address of the emergency. Also, Rosh HaAyin is not a very big city (population 61,801).
When Vered and Yossi found the woman, she had already given birth to a baby boy. As soon as the mother saw Vered, she insisted that the ambulance crew hand her newborn to her. Yossi checked the woman’s vital signs and helped with the afterbirth. The mother did not let Vered and Yossi leave her side, and so they stayed and comforted her until she was put in the ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital.
“Whenever I respond to an emergency at night, my husband accompanies me when he can,” Vered said after the event. “Volunteering with one’s significant other is a blessing. When my husband joined United Hatzalah two years ago, I wanted to join as well. Yossi and I work a lot and getting the chance to volunteer together, to help deliver a baby together, is one of the greatest things a couple can do together. Many volunteers prefer to separate their EMT life from their family life. But for us, it is something we enjoy doing together and it helps us grow closer.”
“United Hatzalah is one big, extended family. People know each other, and volunteers who don’t know each other that well treat each other like family. Responding as a nuclear family inside the larger family of United Hatzalah is something for which we are both grateful. I’m glad that we have the opportunity to enrich our lives as a couple by saving the lives of others together,” Verd added.