On Sunday at around 5:30 p.m., a 56-year-old man lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground during his sister’s funeral in the Kiryat Gat cemetery. The surrounding attendees immediately rushed over to help and called emergency services. One of the guests started to perform CPR through a guided phone call with an emergency dispatcher as help was on the way.
United Hatzalah EMT volunteer Yanki Weinberg was at the United Hatzalah corona testing station where he works as the manager. As soon as he was alerted to the emergency, he rushed over in his car to help.
Within 4 minutes, Yanki arrived and parked alongside an ambulance that had also just arrived at the scene. Yanki and the paramedic from the ambulance took over the CPR efforts from the passerby and attached a defibrillator.
After ten minutes of continuous compressions and three electric shocks, a steady pulse returned to the patient. Just then, another volunteer EMT, Ran David, arrived at the scene to help. The EMTs suspected that the man suffered from a cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation.
They fitted the patient with an assisted breather until he was able to breathe independently and administered medications through an IV. Once in the intensive care ambulance, they finished with all the necessary treatments and rushed the patient off to the nearest hospital.
“The patient is doing well now, thank G-d. He underwent a heart catheterization in the hospital and is now fully conscious and recovering,” updated Yanki. “After hearing about the four tragic deaths in Kiryat Gat this past weekend, three of which were unsuccessful CPRs, I was so relieved when we saw the first signs of a restoring pulse. It was a really stressful and scary experience, especially performing the resuscitation in the cemetery during the funeral.”
Ran added, “I was glad to hear that the patient is doing okay now. I think one of the main reasons for his recovery is that there were people who immediately stepped up to help before the EMTs arrived. We see in unfortunate times like these the importance of getting trained in CPR. I encourage everyone who can to take an EMT course and get certified because they may just save a life.”
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