Israel Seen Exclusive – Saving a Life While Visiting My Parents
One Friday afternoon last month, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Yossi Azrad from Kiryat Gat, took his family in their car to have an outdoor lunch at his parent’s house in Moshav Zohar. Always ready to help others, Azrad put the medical kit from his ambucycle in the car’s trunk together with the rest of the supplies that the family would need. Sure enough, in the middle of the meal, Yossi’s United Hatzalah emergency communication device began to blare, alerting him to a nearby motor vehicle accident.
The incident occurred on Highway 352, which connects Moshav Zohar and a number of other small towns to the main thoroughfare of Highway 35 in the northern Negev.
Azrad jumped into his car and sped to the accident site, arriving first on the scene. The patient had been moved from the center of the highway to the side of the road by shocked witnesses who had been present when the motorcycle that the 30-year-old had been riding on, skidded out-of-control. The crowd now stepped aside as they saw Yossi dash towards them, allowing the EMT to begin treating the patient.
The man, who had been riding on his motorcycle without a helmet suffered a severe head injury. Azrad, suspecting spinal damage, lay the man in a more secure position, opened his airway, and attached a neck-brace for C-spine immobilization. Azrad then carefully bandaged the serious head wound which the man had suffered taking care not to increase intracranial pressure.
Azrad stayed by the patient’s side monitoring his vitals until a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived at the scene. Azrad assisted the ambulance crew in securing the patient inside, after which the man was then transported to the trauma unit at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashdod.
“The accident was a strange one,” said Azrad, recalling the incident. “A man who had been riding a motorcycle without a helmet or protective jacket had fallen off of the bike and was lying, severely injured on the side of the road. That is not something that is common at all.”
Azrad was pleased to share that the story had a happy ending. “I received a phone call this past Saturday night from the brother-in-law of the injured man whose daughter is in my mother’s kindergarten class. I’m not sure how he knew that it was me who treated his brother-in-law, but he told me that the man I treated was in recovery and would love to have a video chat with me.”
Azrad added, “I was ecstatic to hear that the man was recovering. While I cannot visit him in the hospital due to the current lockdown in Israel, having a video call is still something very remarkable. This man has come a long way in a month. He still cannot speak but he can listen and he can smile. To think that had I not arrived when I did, he likely wouldn’t have survived and now we are having a video call is something truly special. I don’t always get to hear back from the people that I treat and when it happens it is a true joy.”
