First Time’s a Charm
At around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, a 2-year-old girl with a background of medical illnesses and complications and several catheterizations was in her home in Nof HaGalil and was given her regular prescribed medications by her parents. As the minutes passed, they noticed something was wrong. The little girl’s condition began to deteriorate. Her parents recognized the severity of the situation as this was unfortunately not the first time they’ve witnessed their daughter’s health fail, and they immediately called emergency services for help.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Mendy Mor Yossef was in his house in Nazareth Illit when he received an urgent call from the dispatch center. There were no United Hatzalah EMTs in the immediate vicinity where the toddler’s house was located so dispatch branched out their radar and called Mendy to come help. Of course, Mendy responded that he was on his way and raced over to the address. “It took me around 10 minutes to drive to where the girl lives, which is a relatively long response time. However, I realized that if I wasn’t going to go, there most probably wouldn’t be any other first responders at the scene helping the little girl. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
Mendy parked his car and headed inside the building. United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Michael Ifergen also arrived at the scene and joined Mendy inside. They were relieved to see an intensive care ambulance team already there with an EKG monitor connected and performing CPR on the girl. Mendy and Michael introduced themselves to the paramedic who directed them to switch out the EMTs performing CPR. Michael took over the chest compressions and Mendy took over the role of providing artificial respiration. While they put all their efforts into the job, the paramedic administered medications to the patient through an IV.
After 10 minutes, the EMTs felt a faint pulse return on the girl’s wrist. Mendy explained, “We continued CPR until her pulse strengthened a little bit more. Then the paramedic realized that there was enough of an improvement that we could start the transport, so we packed up our things and brought her carefully outside to the ambulance.”
The toddler received continuous care throughout the ambulance transport and once again in the hospital. Mendy said after the incident, “Thank G-d the little girl is okay, and the CPR was successful. I am a relatively new EMT, I finished the course just a few months ago. This was my first CPR and I am so happy it was successful. It’s definitely one I will remember. I hope that all the future CPRs that I am a part of turn out to be successful as well.”
