From a Fundraising Meeting to an Emergency in Two Minutes
All emergencies start the same way, with a call.
This call was received by our National Dispatch Center at around 10 a.m. I had just arrived for a business meeting connected to fundraising for United Hatzalah. I was expecting to sit down, talk, and hopefully help advance the work of an organization that means so much to me.
Then my United Hatzalah device sounded.
A child had been injured inside a school just 300 meters away.
The person I was meeting immediately looked at me and said, “Yehuda, go. Go quickly.”
Of course I went.
Within two minutes of receiving the call, I got to the scene, a local school, first. What I encountered was not unlike the hundreds of calls I have responded to before and the countless more I will hopefully respond to in the future. This one involved an 11-year-old boy suffering from serious injuries to his arm and shoulder. He was frightened and screaming in pain.
I knew that just as important as the professional medical treatment that was required, we needed to address his fear.
I approached him calmly. I spoke to him with compassion and tried to reassure him while assessing his injuries. It quickly became clear to me that we needed an intensive care ambulance, and I requested one immediately.
When the advanced medical team arrived, we continued treating him, working to stabilize his injuries and, just as importantly, relieve his pain. Throughout it all, we tried to surround him with calm and empathy at a moment when he was scared and hurt.
That is something I think people sometimes overlook when they think about emergency medicine.
Saving lives is not only about the most dramatic calls. It is not always CPR or a major accident. Sometimes it is about helping an injured 11-year-old within minutes, kneeling beside him when he is in tremendous pain and making sure that he knows someone is there to help him.
For me, there is no better way to begin the day than knowing that when someone needed help, I was able to be there.
