Just after 12:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, a man in his early 90s who was in his apartment on Zichron Sara Street in Rishon Lezion stopped responding to his family members and lost consciousness. Given the man’s severe medical background, his worried family members called emergency services for help.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Moti Halabi was sleeping at home when he received the alert. He jumped on his motorcycle and raced to the address arriving as one of the first responders at the scene. Moti quickly grabbed his equipment, ran inside the building, and up to the apartment where he found the unconscious man. Moti together with other first responders attached a defibrillator and began CPR on the man in an attempt to save his life.
Two other United Hatzalah volunteers, Dana Dicker and Aviya Yahav were on their way back from a concert in Tel Aviv when they received the alert. They changed directions and drove over to the address given arriving a few moments after Moti. They joined the lifesaving efforts.
Dana Dicker and Aviya arrived at the same time as the mobile intensive care unit. Together, the combined team performed CPR for nearly 10 minutes when they managed, surprisingly, to bring the man’s pulse back. His family members were overjoyed when they heard the news. As the team began to transport the man downstairs to the waiting ambulance, his pulse disappeared. Once more the team began CPR, this time in the lobby of the building. It took another 30 minutes to regain the man’s pulse and raise his blood pressure to a steady enough rate to attempt transport but the team persevered and succeeded.
“It was the first CPR I participated in where we managed to bring back the person’s pulse,” explained Dana, who is still finishing her training process. “In the three months that I have been involved in this, I’ve never been part of a successful CPR until tonight. No one thought that it was going to happen, after all the man was in his 90s and had a long medical background with multiple complications. While I don’t know what will happen down the road for this patient, I know that against all odds we gave him a fighting chance at life once more and brought hope to his family and that is exactly what we are here to do.”
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