On Sunday afternoon, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Yoni Tzadok was in the middle of his delivery shift in the bustling city Bnei Brak. Just after 1:00 p.m., as he was dropping a shipment off on Kehilot Ya’akov street, Yoni’s communications device alerted him to an emergency occurring on the very street he was on.

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A UH volunteer responder on a E-Bike (Illustration)

Despite being in the middle of a delivery, Yoni dropped what he was doing, literally dropping the package in his hand, and notified United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center that he was on his way to the location.

Arriving first at the scene in under a minute, Yoni found a 60-year-old woman lying unconscious in her bed. After a quick check of the woman’s vital signs, Yoni found no pulse, and immediately attached the defibrillator from his medical bag. The defibrillator did not advise a shock, and so Yoni launched into full-blown CPR.

Just as Yoni began chest compressions another volunteer EMT arrived at the scene to assist Yoni in the CPR efforts on the pulseless woman. After close to 20 minutes of chest compressions and assisted ventilation, a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived at the scene and also joined the efforts.

The paramedic from the ambulance crew administered medicines to the woman and suggested that Yoni continue CPR on the woman as she was being put in the ambulance. After less than a minute, the woman’s pulse returned, and she was taken safely to the hospital.

After recovering from the rush of saving a life, Yoni remembered his delivery job that he had quite literally dropped earlier, rushed to his e-bike, and returned to work.

“Later at night, when I have no more deliveries for the day, I volunteer as an ambulance driver for United Hatzalah,” commented Yoni. “Volunteering is in my blood, and I do whatever it is that I can do to help save a life. Sometimes that means stopping a conversation to run and save a life, and sometimes that means dropping a box that I am holding and rushing to a nearby apartment.”

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