Two weeks ago, on Sunday, at a gas station near Netanya, a family was out dining in a restaurant with their one-year-old baby girl. After 30 minutes their baby had an allergic reaction to some of the food she had been eating. Her worried parents called emergency services for help. United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center sent an urgent alert about the emergency to volunteers located in the near vicinity.
Yehuda Adler, a United Hatzalah EMT volunteer was driving his private car to work when his proximity alert went off. Yehuda turned his car around and drove towards the emergency rushing to the scene as quick as the traffic would allow him. When Yehuda arrived at the scene he found the baby girl had a swollen tongue and swelling around her neck. She was congested and was having difficulty breathing. Yehuda did not have an EpiPen with him and thus had to treat her symptoms by simply administering oxygen. After 3 minutes an ambulance arrived and an Epipen was given to the first responder to administer to the young girl.
Yehuda injected the EpiPen into the girl’s thigh and after a few seconds, her swelling subsided and she could breathe more easily. The ambulance transferred the baby to Laniado Hospital for further treatment and observation.
After the incident, Yehuda said, “Today’s incident was like any other incident for me, no matter where I am or when I always try my best to save more lives and provide more help to the people around me. I believe we should always help those that we can in an effort to save lives. One day it may be me, or someone close to me who will help. Today we got lucky that the ambulance arrived as quickly as it did with the EpiPen. We need more of these devices in order to be able to equip all of our volunteers to carry them. For cases of anaphylaxis, this is a very straightforward treatment but we need the tools to implement it. They stabilize the patient’s condition and reverse the effects of the anaphylactic reaction quickly. Auto-injection devices such as EpiPens are the best treatment possible in the shortest amount of time, and they save lives.”
To donate an EpiPen to United Hatzalah please click here:
