Shlomo Toledano, is a volunteer EMT and emergency electric bicycle rider with United Hatzalah who hails from the city of Ashdod.    

Shlomo has been searching for his soul mate and was excited about meeting a prospective young lady recently that seemed like a perfect match. The pair set an auspicious date and time to meet, Saturday evening, the second night of Chanukah. As fate would have it, just as he was getting ready to meet the young woman, Shlomo’s emergency communications device began to ring alerting him to a medical emergency that was taking place nearby.

The story began a few weeks prior when Shlomo had visited a grave of one of the tzaddikim and prayed for help in finding an appropriate wife. During his prayers, he promised that if he should find a suitable woman, he would dedicate himself to saving lives make sure to respond to more than 100 medical emergencies in a month’s time. 

“On Chanukah, when the emergency occurred, I had stayed in Bnei Brak for Shabbat because I wanted to be on an ambulance shift in the city and the date was on Saturday night. The shift ended just as Shabbat was coming out and I headed back to where I was staying in order to get ready for meeting my shidduch (blind date).  As I was getting ready, I was alerted to a man suffering a cardiac arrest two streets away from where I was staying. I had no choice, I had to go and help.” 

When Shlomo arrived at the address he found the 80-year-old patient with no sign of breath or pulse, Shlomo and a fellow arriving EMT carried the man out to the living room, laid him on the floor, and launched into emergency resuscitation. While his colleague performed chest compressions, Shlomo attached the defibrillator pads and administering a series of 3 lifesaving shocks from the AED. He then provided assisted ventilation with a bag valve mask. After a few minutes, a mobile intensive care ambulance crew arrived, and the team provided cardiac medications intravenously. Eventually, the team of first responders managed to restart the man’s heart. The patient even began breathing again independently. Once the patient was stabilized, he was whisked to the hospital. 

“As soon as the CPR was over and the man was in the ambulance, I gathered my medical equipment and glanced at my watch,” recounted Shlomo. “I was shocked to see how little time I had before the date.  Even though I was sweaty and disheveled, I didn’t have time to go home and change or I would be really late. I rushed out to my e-bike and rode to the location where I was meeting the young lady. I was out of breath when I walked up to her and I explained why I was late and where I had been.” 

The young woman was so enamored by the story that she told Shlomo that she was also studying to become an EMR in order to help further her teaching career. “Not everyone is excited at the prospect of dating a first responder,” said Shlomo. “People are afraid that you will need to suddenly run out on them all the time. So it is a bit touchy to bring up on a first date. But she was really into it. She even told me that she was studying to become an EMR herself. When I showed her the defibrillator that I had just saved a life with, she was very excited.” 

The couple hit it off during the first date and went on three more consecutive dates in as many days. “Things like that generally don’t happen, so I knew something was there,” explained Shlomo. By the end of Chanukah, Shlomo had proposed and the woman accepted. They are now engaged to be married in the spring. 

Fulfilling his promise, Shlomo has spent the last three weeks responding to more than 150 medical emergencies. “I accepted upon myself that if I succeed at getting engaged that I would then do 100 lifesaving emergency calls. Since saving the man’s life that Saturday night, I have lost count, but it is more than 150 for sure.” 

 

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