United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Shir Caspi is one of the most active EMTs in her area. Shir rides an emergency E-bike in order to arrive at medical emergencies and provide assistance as fast as she can.
One recent evening, Shir was relaxing at home when she received an alert from United Hatzalah’s Dispatch Center alerting her to an unresponsive male victim lying on the street near her location. Immediately, Shir ran out the door, hopped on her E-bike and raced to the given address, arriving in under 90 seconds.
Shir found a 54-year-old man who had fallen right outside his apartment building. The man was bleeding from lacerations that he had sustained to his head. Shir, together with another volunteer who arrived on his ambucycle, helped the man into his apartment. As the EMTs were bandaging his head, the man began to cry and told them about his wife who had recently passed away. Comforting and reassuring the man, Shir and her fellow EMT remained with him until he regained his composure.
A few days later, a driver in Arad lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the median. Shir was nearby when she was alerted to the accident. She jumped on her E-bike and sped to the scene. She arrived to find the driver unsettled and in a daze. Shir spoke reassuringly to the shaken man as she checked his vitals. The driver refused to go to the hospital in an ambulance, but the concerned EMT strongly advised the man to go to the emergency room to rule out any possibility of internal injuries.
In her professional life, Shir has recently started working as a security guard at a hotel at the Dead Sea. One night, Shir was on duty at the entrance to the hotel when a car drove up and a man stumbled out. His face was covered with blood and his friends asked Shir if she could help him. Showing them her United Hatzalah ID, Shir told them she was an EMT and sat the man down so she could provide treatment. While cleaning the blood off his face, Shir discovered that the man had a deep gash across his forehead. She called the dispatch center and requested that an ambulance be sent to her location. She then bandaged the man’s head wound to stem the bleeding. The ambulance arrived 10 minutes later and evacuated the patient to Soroka Medical Center, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) away in Be’er Sheva.
“I love being able to help people and assist them with whatever is needed,” said Caspi. “Assisting during a medical emergency when someone is at their lowest point is something that is very meaningful to me. My own grandfather had a cardiac arrest a few years ago. The ambulance took a long time in coming, and for me, waiting for the ambulance, for help to arrive, was the worst feeling. I knew at that moment that I need to learn how to help in these types of situations. Thankfully, by joining United Hatzalah, I now have the opportunity to provide help to those suffering. If I’m around, no one will have to wait for a distant ambulance to arrive to receive initial treatment. I’ll be there to help.”
To support the work of volunteers like Shir click here:
