On Monday morning just after 7:00 a.m., a man in his 70’s was at home on Zalman Shneur Street in Netanya when he began to feel unwell. He told his family that he was having severe chest pain and then proceeded to collapse on the sofa. His worried family called for help.

United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Ze’ev Drimer was just waking up when all of a sudden his emergency communications device started to blare. Ze’ev quickly got up and grabbed it looking at the location of the emergency. It was just a few streets away from his house. Ze’ev threw on some clothes, grabbed his medical kit, and ran outside to his bicycle. He quickly sped off as fast as he could peddle to the given address. As soon as he arrived, he raced up the stairs and into the apartment where the man had collapsed. He found the man unconscious on his sofa with no pulse. 

 

Ze’ev asked the man’s son for assistance in lowering his father to the floor so that he could initiate CPR. Ze’ev quickly attached a defibrillator and began compressions on the man. Just then Avraham Levy, another volunteer EMT with United Hatzalah raced in and joined Ze’ev in an effort to save the man’s life. 

 

The defibrillator did not administer a shock as the patient was apparently in a state of asystole. In spite of this, the pair of EMTs did not give up and alternated between rounds of compressions and providing assisted ventilation. After a few minutes, an intensive care ambulance arrived and joined the effort to save the man’s life. The combined team worked together for 25 minutes and finally succeeded in bringing the man’s pulse back. 

“Some people start their mornings with coffee, I like to start mine with successful CPRs,” said an ecstatic Drimer after saving the man’s life. “We can never know what will happen afterward, whether this man makes a full recovery or not. But I know that I did everything I could to bring him back and bring his pulse back and that is my job. I am happy that I was the right person in the right place at the right time and that I was able to help give this man another chance at life.” 

 

Avraham added that “This was a unique case because when the man’s pulse and blood pressure came back they were quite high. It was almost as if he hadn’t undergone a cardiac arrest at all. It must have been that his heart wasn’t stopped for too long and that is thanks to the quick response of Ze’ev who arrived and initiated CPR very quickly after receiving the alert.”   

To support the work of volunteers like Ze’ev and Avraham please click here: