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. 

The ambulance team that participated in the CPR including Ackerman Mehl and Yehud 1024x768 2
The ambulance team that participated in the CPR including Ackerman, Mehl, and Yehud

“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 that 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.”

 

To find out more about NCSY Hatzalah Rescue click here: