Thankful In Israel

Thankful In Israel

When they heard the sirens and then a rocket explode, MAGEN DAVID ADOM First Responders Neomi and Einav rolled out immediately. They didn’t wait for the phone to ring. They were stationed in southern Israel, not far from the Gaza Strip.

They followed the smoke trail into the village of Ashkelon. Near the blast site they found Yarin, a 16-year-old boy on the ground in severe condition. He was unconscious, bleeding heavily, riddled with shrapnel.

When he heard the warning siren, Yarin knew he didn’t have time to run to the nearby bomb shelter, so he tried to protect himself by crouching down alongside a cinderblock wall. It didn’t provide enough cover.

Neomi and Einav got right to work. They quickly checked and stabilized Yarin, shifted him to a gurney, hooked up an IV, and loaded him into their Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance. In less than four minutes they were racing him to the hospital for emergency surgery.

Thanks to your generous support, Yarin survived his injuries and went back to his life as a normal teenager in Israel.

MAGEN DAVID ADOM First Responder Oren Wacht was first on the scene after a series of mortars hit Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel.

The school building was hit. Oren found Jehan on the floor of a kindergarten room, covered with blood. Heavy, jagged pieces of twisted metal had ripped through his body.

It was their son’s third birthday. Jehan and his wife, Liora, had been celebrating with him when they heard the sirens. Jehan knew they had less than 17 seconds to find shelter. He rushed his family inside the building and threw himself over them as the mortar exploded.

Miraculously, the young mother and child were unharmed. Jehan’s swift action had protected them. But at what cost? There was so much blood. “My concern,” Oren said later, “was that it hit his heart.”

Oren quickly staunched the bleeding and carefully loaded Jehan into his Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance.

Before speeding to the hospital, Oren paused to offer a few comforting words to Jehan’s wife. “I always make sure to talk to the family,” Oren said. “They’re giving you full trust.”

“For us, it’s something we do daily,” he said. “But for the family remembers, it is their whole life.”

Thanks to your generous support, Jehan survived his injuries and has fully recovered.

When the media called Jehan a hero for protecting his family, Jehan disagreed. He said that he felt the MAGEN DAVID ADOM paramedics were the true heroes. He compares them to angels: “For the injured,” he said, “they’re the light in the darkness.”

You have helped bring light into darkness. In the past two weeks alone, almost 500 terrorist missiles and rockets have been fired into Israel. Your support of MAGEN DAVID ADOM has changed the course of lives and families forever.

The brave first responders of MAGEN DAVID ADOM are thankful for you, so are Yarin and Jehan, and the thousands of men, women, and children in Israel whose lives you have helped save.

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.
2 Corinthians 9:12