The Morning Phone Call That Saved a Life
It was around 9:30 in the morning. I was driving my wife somewhere when I received the emergency alert. A frantic mother reported that her baby was left inside her parked car at the Yavne train station.
I was only three or four traffic lights away from the train station and immediately raced to the scene. In these situations you never know what you might find.
Moments later, when I arrived, police officers were in the process of smashing one of the car windows. I watched as an officer reached inside and pulled the little boy, approximately one year old, out of the vehicle.
The child had been alone in that car for nearly an hour and a half. He was pale and hysterical crying.
My first instinct as a United Hatzalah medic was to assess his condition. I immediately looked at his face, his reactions and his overall condition. Despite the ordeal he was stable.
The little boy was clinging desperately to the police officer who had rescued him. After spending so long alone, crying inside the locked car, and then experiencing the frightening sound of a window being smashed, he was understandably overwhelmed.
I continued assessing him through his appearance, responsiveness and general condition. Thankfully, there were no immediate indications of a serious medical emergency.
We were all genuinely moved by what had happened and the miracle that the baby was alive and well. One policewoman was actually in tears.
I have responded to previous incidents involving children accidentally left in vehicles. Fortunately, those cases generally involved children being locked inside for only a few minutes.
This was different. An hour and a half is an extraordinarily long time for a young child to be trapped alone inside a car.
And we were incredibly fortunate.
The morning weather was relatively mild. With the later sunrise at this time of year, the temperature was still cool enough that the child had apparently avoided the potentially devastating consequences of prolonged heat exposure.
I cannot help thinking about what might have happened had the temperature been higher, or had someone discovered him even an hour later.
We could have been dealing with an entirely different situation.
I was the first medical responder to reach the scene. Approximately ten minutes later, another emergency medical volunteer arrived, followed by a responding ambulance roughly twenty minutes after my arrival. Once the ambulance team assumed responsibility for the child’s care, I left the scene to continue my day.
Thankfully, the child did not require hospitalization and was eventually reunited with his grandparents.
For me, this was a morning I will not soon forget.
