Early Sunday morning, near the Nes Ziona interchange, a motor vehicle collision took place that involved four vehicles. As traffic began to build up due to the accident, worried passersby who witnessed the incident called emergency services for help.
One witness to the accident happened to be United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Kalanit Taub, who was riding with a friend on her way to work. Kalanit, who lives in Efrat was on her way to her job in Rehovot and was just a few minutes drive away from her destination when she saw the accident together with her friend. Kalanit asked the friend to pull over and let her out of the car so that she could go and help.
Kalanit got out of her friend’s car, in the middle of the busy highway, notified the organization’s Dispatch and Command Center about the accident, and then treated the injured. All she had on her at the moment was basic equipment: gloves, trauma bandages, a tourniquet, an Epien, and aspirin, which was woefully inadequate for this situation.
Kalanit took out her pair of gloves and assessed the injured. She noticed that three of the injured were experiencing neck pain, so she instructed them not to move until additional personnel could arrive with proper equipment. She then instructed a few passersby to hold the heads of the people suffering neck pain in order to stabilize their necks and prevent possible further C-spine injuries, giving them clear instructions on how to do so in an effective manner. Kalanit also called the police and alerted them to the accident.
A short while later, two ambulances arrived together with a UH volunteer on an ambucycle, Dr. Fahkry Dirbashi, a Muslim volunteer who works as a physician in Beilinson Hospital. Dr. Dirbashi was on his way to a specialized ambucycle driver training course for UH ambucycle drivers when he received the alert and rushed to respond to the accident. The paramedic on the ambulance and Dr. Dirbashi applied cervical collars for those who needed it and put one patient on a backboard. After all of the injured were treated, stabilized, and on their way to receive definitive care at the hospital, Dr. Dirbashi headed to his course and Kalanit continued on her way to work, but without a vehicle of her own, she had to request a ride from someone. Thankfully, one of her fellow first responders was heading in her direction and drove her the rest of the way to her work.
”It was a very eventful morning for me,” Kalanit explained after the fact. “While I respond to calls quite often, and I’ve even hitchhiked to emergencies before, this one was certainly unique, and I am glad I was able to help those in need as soon as possible after the accident in order to prevent further injury.
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