Last week, just after 3:00 a.m., United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Yisrael Malul was tossing and turning in his bed, having a hard time falling asleep in his home in the city of Kokhav Ya’akov. Suddenly, interrupting the silence, a loud screeching voice was heard outside. The voice belonged to a woman crying for help. The piercing sound of the woman’s scream jolted Yisrael’s wife awake, and when she turned to her husband, he was already grabbing his clothes and medical bag. Upon leaving, Yisrael’s communication device alerted him to the emergency occurring nearby, as his parked ambucycle outside his apartment building was identified as the closest to the scene.
Yisrael exited his apartment building and was instructed by passersby to the second floor of the neighboring building. Rushing up the stairs, the experienced EMT entered a room where a young man was lying on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood. The woman was kneeling over a young man who was bleeding profusely and begged Yisrael to help the bleeding young man.
Without hesitation, Yisrael quickly checked the man’s vital signs to see if he had a pulse and then cut open his shirt to reveal two stab wounds by his shoulder and a deep stab wound in his chest, not far from his heart. Calculating the location of the wound, the depth of it, and the agony the victim portrayed, Yisrael knew he must act quickly, and that this man’s life was in danger.
Yisrael alerted United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center requesting backup and a mobile intensive care ambulance. He then firmly applied trauma bandages against the wounds to stop the bleeding. As additional United Hatzalah volunteers arrived they assisted with the bandaging and managed to subdue some of the bleeding. Shortly after the man’s condition was stabilized, an ambulance arrived to transport the teenager to the nearest hospital.
As Yisrael treated the young man for his wounds, he was told the background of the situation by the young woman. A couple of days before the incident, an altercation occurred between two young men involving a young woman. The altercation quickly turned into violent words leading the furious man to use action instead. A few days later, he broke into the second man’s apartment and stabbed the 18-year-old three different times before fleeing the scene and disappearing. The woman entered the room after hearing suspicious noises and found the victim lying on the ground covered in blood, that is when she shrieked and woke Yisrael and his wife.
Yisrael later discovered that the victim had undergone surgery and thankfully recovered and that the man who was responsible for the stabbing was arrested and taken into police custody.
“When I entered the room, there was a lot of blood on the floor,” Yisrael said. “When I saw it, I knew it was a matter of minutes before the man died. His life depended on how quickly I acted. Whenever I am faced with instances such as these, my brain goes into autopilot and I simply act. I assessed the stab wounds and began bandaging. If I had hesitated for even a moment, because of the blood, or for any other reason, who knows what would have happened. As part of my training to become a United Hatzalah EMT, I was taught to think instinctively and not let my mind wander and get distracted. This skill helps me act quickly, and as a result, I was able to help save this young man’s life.”
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