Early Sunday morning in Tel Aviv, just after 7, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Dan Shmuel was awakened by his emergency communications device. A 60-year-old man had lost consciousness and collapsed on Allenby Street, not far from where Dan lives. Dan quickly got dressed and rushed down the flight of stairs from his apartment to the street where he climbed into his minilance that was parked in his handicapped spot outside the building.
Dan is disabled, he walks with a cane, having lost the use of one of his legs in a motorcycle accident more than 20 years ago. He has since learned to cope with his disability and doesn’t let it stop him from saving lives.
Dan arrived at the scene of the emergency in just under two minutes from the time he had received the alert. The veteran EMT spotted the unconscious man lying on the street, where a passer-by with no medical training began performing ad hoc chest compressions in an effort to keep the man’s heart going. Dan launched into CPR and alerted the dispatcher that additional assistance was needed. As more medical personnel began to arrive on the scene, they joined the effort, attaching a defibrillator, providing assisted ventilation, and rotating compressions with Dan. Ten minutes later, a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived and joined the lifesaving effort.
After half an hour of intensive CPR, the defibrillator finally advised a shock, and then, after a single shock, the man’s pulse returned, and the man began regaining consciousness.
After checking that the man’s vital signs were stable, he was taken to the nearest hospital. Dan and the rest of the assembled first responders breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t comfortable for Dan, or even easy, to do what he had just done, but he helped save a man’s life, and that is what being a first responder is all about. Dan then returned home to start his workday as an Osteopath (Osteopathy is a type of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical manipulation of the body’s muscle tissue and bones) and apologized to his clients for his lateness.
“In the year 2000, I was involved in a motorcycle accident that permanently affected my legs,” Dan related. “I walk with a cane, but this does not prevent me from continuing to volunteer. With the special minilance I was given by United Hatzalah, I can get around the congested streets of Tel Aviv quickly and easily. Sometimes, when I’m treating one of my osteopathy patients, I have to apologize and leave because a medical emergency is taking place nearby, and I am the nearest volunteer. I will always respond to nearby alerts, no matter what the circumstances and regardless of my condition. My patients know this and have come to respect it. After all, we all live together in the same community and we all need to help each other to make sure we can keep living.”
