On a recent Friday evening, families across Kibbutz Tlalim, a kibbutz in the Negev desert in southern Israel, were sitting down to their Shabbat dinners.
Ilana Nisky had left Rotem, her young daughter, at the dining room table to bring more food from the kitchen, when she heard Rotem gasping for air. She was choking.
Nisky, who had learned first aid during IDF reserve duty, began performing the Heimlich maneuver, but when that did not help, she raced to her next-door neighbors for help, holding Rotem in her arms, unconscious.
As it happens, Nisky’s neighbors, the Arotskers, are a pair of doctors who volunteer with MAGEN DAVID ADOM. The Nisky and Arotsker families are close friends and have been neighbors on the kibbutz for years.
Dr. Shani Arotsker answered the door when Nisky arrived frantically seeking help for Rotem. As a pediatrician, Arotsker understood the severity of Rotem’s situation, and immediately performed basic CPR. A few seconds later, her husband, Dr. Natan Arotsker, a senior intensive care physician and volunteer with MAGEN DAVID ADOM, joined her, and with the help of medical equipment he had access to thanks to his volunteer work with MAGEN DAVID ADOM, performed lifesaving resuscitation and extracted food from Rotem’s small throat. Dr. Artosker is part of MAGEN DAVID ADOM’s Magen Project, a community-based emergency response program. Every second mattered and Dr. Arotsker worked adroitly and calmy, allaying Nisky’s deep concern for her daughter’s wellbeing.
After the Arotskers successfully stabilized Rotem’s condition, she was evacuated to the hospital in a MAGEN DAVID ADOM MICU that had arrived while she was being resuscitated. Thankfully, little Rotem made a full recovery and is back at home and back at kindergarten.
“Everyone, especially parents, should take a CPR and first aid course,” implored Nisky. “Unfortunately, I learned this firsthand. In the moment of truth, you don’t have time to think, you just have to act.”
Dr. Natan Arotsker echoed Nisky’s plea for more people to learn first aid. “I call on medical professionals, especially those like us who live in remote communities, to volunteer with a MAGEN DAVID ADOM medical squad. It saves lives.”
