On Monday afternoon, United Hatzalah Operations Department received a special request from volunteer Dr. Shlomo Gensler to transfer a one-month-old baby girl from Schneider Children’s Medical Center to Ben Gurion Airport for an urgent medical flight. The infant needed to travel to a hospital in Miami, Florida which specializes in respiratory defects. The baby girl suffers from a unique birth defect that prevents her from breathing on her own and she is currently only able to breathe while being assisted by a ventilator.
For the purpose of completing the transfer, an EMS team, consisting of a doctor, a paramedic, and two EMTs, was required to arrive and transfer the child with her parents within two hours.
Three volunteers from Modiin responded to the request and took up the mission of bringing a mobile intensive care ambulance and joining Dr. Gensler for the transport. The volunteers, Paramedic Itzik Kara, EMT Adina Raph, and ambulance driver Avi Deblinger, transferred the baby girl and carried her medical emergency kits along with the ventilator and other necessary equipment. The transfer took 5 hours total and ended successfully with the baby and parents inside the plane where they were cared for by another in-flight medical team.
After the incident Avi recounted; “We got a special request from the Operations Department and we immediately got organized and went to get the baby girl from Schneider’s hospital. Our goal is always to respond in the shortest amount of time possible and provide the highest level of care for the patient. We are all experienced in providing medical care in a variety of life-saving missions, so when we received the request, we didn’t hesitate at all. I hope and pray that the baby gets through her procedure and can live normally.”
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