United Hatzalah of Israel working in conjunction with El Al Airlines is sending a team from its Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit to provide psychological support and stabilization to the families and neighbors of those injured, killed, or affected by the tragedy that occurred in Surfside Florida.

The team’s mission will be to assist the community in Surfside and those affected by the collapse of a residential condo that has claimed the life of at least two people and left nearly 159 missing.

The team of psychological first aid experts will be composed of top members of the organization’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit (PCRU) and will assist the families of those who were killed, injured, and missing, in the collapse. They will also make themselves available to members of the Miami community by providing psychological and emotional stabilization and treatment to those who need it in the wake of the incident.

The unit will be led by Dov Maisel, the Vice President of Operations for United Hatzalah, and a paramedic, who has led disaster response missions to Nepal, Haiti, and Japan. Maisel will partner with Einat Kaufman, who serves as the Clinical Operations Director of the PCRU. Kauffman, in addition to being a trained EMT, is one of the top Cognitive Psychotherapists in Israel, and an expert in trauma, grief, and bereavement especially when concerned with mass casualty incidents. She as well as other members of the unit have taken part in several missions as psychological first aid responders, including the missions from United Hatzalah following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and the Tree Of Life mass shooting that took place in Pittsburgh.

Most recently, Maisel and Kauffman led the PCRU and United Hatzalah’s medical team in providing support at the Meron tragedy in Israel, to both the injured, bereaved, and to the first responders themselves who were present at the incident and were traumatized as a result.