Petach Tikvah – On Monday afternoon, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT David Bashari was on his way to visit a friend on David Remez street in Petah Tikva. Just after 2:00 p.m., David was in a location with bad reception just as United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center was trying to reach him. A 75-year-old man was working in construction remodeling a villa, on the very street that David was on. As the man walked to his car, he suddenly collapsed. The minute David’s communication device was in a good reception range, he was alerted to the nearby emergency.

Apologizing to his friend, David rushed out to his parked ambucycle and headed to the given location and arrived in under one minute just after Avi Marcus, head of United Hatzalah’s medical department, and volunteer EMT Yitzchak Shikorel.

The team of first responders found a passer-by on the phone with the Dispatch Center attempting chest compressions. Avi took over and checked the man’s vital signs, including searching for any possible head injury from the fall.  David and Yitzchak launched into CPR by beginning chest compressions on the unconscious man and attaching a defibrillator. Avi then administered medicines to help the 75-year-old’s condition, as additional medical personnel began arriving at the scene.

After close to ten minutes, a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived at the location. After loading into the ambulance together with the patient, David, Avi, and Yitzchak continued CPR en route to the hospital. Just a few minutes later, the man’s pulse returned. As the ambulance approached the hospital, the patient even began breathing on his own, with no further assisted ventilation needed.

After making sure that the man was brought safely into the hospital, the ambulance crew drove the three volunteers back to their vehicles on David Remez Street. Later that night Avi informed David that the man was in stable condition and was going to make a full recovery.

“We call instances like this ‘a really successful CPR’,” commented David. “Sometimes when a person, especially an elderly one, collapses and needs CPR, that person’s condition usually deteriorates and is never the same. However, in cases where the patient makes a full recovery and can walk and talk normally, a first responder gets the chance to see the fruits of his life-saving efforts with his own eyes. To see a man so close to death, and then see him alive once again as if nothing had ever happened, that is an incredible feeling. As a first responder, we don’t always get that, but I am grateful for the moments that we do.”