Yazid (left) Khaled (seated)
United Hatzalah – Neighborly in Nazareth & American Teens Assist in Successful CPR
Khaled Zayyoud
Yazid Anzawi
Nazareth man suffers sudden cardiac arrest and is revived by neighbors, EMTs, and ambulance crews
Nazareth – On Sunday evening, just before 11:00 p.m., a man in his 40s with a long medical history wanted to take a walk outside. As he left his home in the neighborhood of Yafa an-Naseriyye in Nazareth, he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and lost consciousness. His worried family members called emergency services for help.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Khaled Zayyoud who lives a few blocks away, received the alert from United Hatzalah’s dispatch and command center. “I was in the middle of eating a late dinner when I received the alert,” Khaled recounted. “I immediately called my friend Yazid Anzawi, another United Hatzalah volunteer EMT who runs a local ambulance service in Nazareth, and told him to come as well. I rushed out of my house and arrived at the home of the patient less than two minutes later.”
Khaled found the man collapsed in his doorway and brought him inside to where it would be easier to treat him. A moment later Yazid arrived with his ambulance crew and the team of first responders initiated CPR.
“We checked for vital signs and found none,” Yazid recalled. “I attached a defibrillator as Khaled started compressions. We then opened an IV line and administered fluids while other members of the team administered oxygen. I called dispatch and asked for a mobile intensive care unit to be sent.”
A few minutes after Khaled and Yazid showed up a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived as well and joined the effort to save the man’s life. “We fought for this man’s life for an hour, and we were thankful that we did because, in the end, we succeeded,” explained Yazid. An hour after Khaled and Yazid began CPR the man’s pulse returned and he began breathing on his own. “There were times when I didn’t think that he was going to make it,” said Khaled, “but we persevered and the man survived. The CPR was a success. After the man’s pulse returned he was transported to the English Hospital in Nazareth for further care.”
“I have dedicated my life to helping people and I am glad that we were able to help this man and his family,” Yazid concluded.
Khaled added, “This is what we do, we help those nearby, our neighbors and friends. I can always prepare myself another meal, helping someone else takes precedence. Saving a life is the most important thing one can do, and I am happy that I was able to do it today and help one of my neighbors.”
American Teens Assist in Successful CPR
The ambulance team that participated in the CPR including Ackerman, Mehl, and Yehud
American Teens Assist in Successful CPR of Ashdod Man and Help Save His Life
Ashdod – On Sunday evening, a man suffered a prolonged epileptic seizure in his home in Ashdod, causing him to lose consciousness. Worried family members called emergency services for help.
Two members of the NCSY summer program “NCSY Hatzalah Rescue” were on board a United Hatzalah’s ambulance that was driving nearby when the emergency alert was received by United Hatzalah’s dispatch and command center. The ambulance was quickly rerouted to the location of the emergency and arrived a few minutes later. Jori Mehl from Stamford Connecticut and Josh Ackerman from Plainview New York were about to embark on their first ever CPR emergency response, having just finished their training to become EMRs a week and a half ago.
“We were told in training that it would be unlikely that we would need to use the CPR skills that we learned as it is rare that we would come across a person suffering a cardiac arrest,” said Ackerman after the incident. “In the week-and-a-half that we have been on ambulance shifts, this is the first one that I have come across and while the training prepared us for what we had to do, it felt completely different.”
Sali Shimon Yehud, who was driving the ambulance relayed, “Together with volunteer first responders from the organization, we arrived just a few moments after the emergency alert went out. We went up to the apartment together with the mobile intensive care unit that had arrived and worked together to attempt to resuscitate the man who had no pulse and was not breathing. We performed CPR for more than 45 minutes and managed to bring back the man’s pulse several times, but each time it faded away again. Finally, after 45 minutes we brought back a pulse that was stable enough to enable the man to be transported and he was taken in the mobile intensive care ambulance.”
Ackerman, Mehl, and Yehud, as well as the other EMTs who were accompanying them, were then dispatched to another emergency in which a young child was involved in a motor vehicle accident with an ATV. They transported that patient to the hospital and found the man they had just helped to resuscitate a short time earlier was in the same hospital and that his condition had stabilized.
“It felt great to resuscitate a person and know that we helped save his life,” Ackerman added. “Having my first CPR be a successful one is something that I will never forget. I am glad that I was here to help save this man’s life.”
