On Monday, United Hatzalah medics Danny Gur and Avishai Landau responded to a traffic accident that occurred at El-Aroub intersection, which is located near the Gush Etzion intersection. Gur lives in the nearby town of Alon Shvut and had already responded to a man with a respiratory problem earlier in the day.

“We arrived at the scene and saw that two vehicles had been in an accident. One driver, a Palestinian man, had suffered moderate head wounds and a broken leg. We staunch the bleeding and treated him on the scene before passing to the  Red Crescent ambulance service, which transported him to the nearest hospital.”

Gur said that the interaction between the Israeli medics who live in Gush Etzion and the Red Crescent went smoothly and that cooperative medical situations such as these happen all the time. “We work with them pretty much every day. We both respond to emergencies, and we hand off the Palestinian patients to the Red Crescent after we provide initial treatment at the scene. It’s a more  than daily occurrence here throughout Gush Etzion.”

Gur and Landau are two of the 22 United Hatzalah volunteers spread throughout Gush Etzion and provide emergency medical response to people who live in his town as well as  the surrounding area.

While communication between the Red Crescent and United Hatzalah medics is not always easy, due to language barriers, both organizations work together to save the lives of those  injured in their areas. “During the incident today, we had a tough time conversing with the Red Crescent as the majority  of the medics who responded to this incident only spoke Arabic, and my Arabic isn’t great. But there was a medic who spoke English and so we were able to work it out.” Gur, who originally hails from Canada, has a strong command of English as do many of the United Hatzalah medics in Gush Etzion. “The important thing is that we were able to help treat the patient, regardless of who he is, or where he is from,” concluded Gur.