Last Day

(Aryeh, Emily, Anas and I)
Well it is the last day. My focus for the day was enjoying the time with everyone so I wasn't as concerned about having the perfect calls or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have some good calls if they came.






(Fizee and I)
The day started with the service call to the bank and post office. Yesterday I thought that was where we were going when we took the station worker home after they weren't feeling good. So I still had some of my exaggerated excitement I had from yesterday.






(Shochi and I)
The second call was to a woman who had started medicine that lowered her blood pressure and she hadn't had anything to eat or drink and subsequently fainted. We were met by two little boys to show us where to go. There was some discussion between the patient, her husband and the medic about what they were going to do. We could take her to the hospital in the ambulance but it wouldn't be with lights and sirens, just a regular drive and so it wouldn't be all that different than going in their own car to the hospital. They eventually decided to have us transport her.

The next call was to a worker who had fallen off the side of a work truck. We backboarded him and took him to the hospital.

Our last call of our MDA experience was to a car accident in a nearby village. When we got on scene there was a lot of people milling around. We got the patient into the chair and loaded her into the back of the ambulance. The woman's young child was handed to her and they both road in the back of the ambulance. They both seemed okay and we transferred them to a very busy ER.

Back to the station for goodbyes and some pictures.

Well it is at this point that I want to thank all of my readers and to thank all the wonderful people I have met this summer. What an adventure!

I'll be spending my last few days in Jerusalem before flying home.






It's been amazing!

Yom Rishon

(MDA Hip Hop Crew)

Yom Rishon. Sunday. The day after Shabbat when all the things which were bothering you on Shabbat you would now want to go to the hospital for. Suppose to be a busy day. Nope. Snoozer.

First call was to a chicken packaging plant. The smell was bad enough with the brief whiffs coming through the window as we were trying to find exactly where in the complex we were needed. The call was for a fainting. I don't blame them with all the stench and everything. We finally talked with someone who let us know that the patient had been taken to the hospital already by their boss. I can't say I was too sad about not having to get out and work in that pleasant stench.

The next time out was taking home one of the MDA station workers who wasn't feeling good. Keeping with good protocol we take their blood pressure on the way. It's okay. Drop them off and it is back to the station.


The rest of the shift is filled with some sleep, chatting with Anas, playing chess with Anas (he won) and watching an episode and a half of Grey's Anatomy (I might be hooked now). At the end of our shift someone is brought to the station with an ankle injury. After it was bandaged we took them to the hospital.

Even though it was right at the end of the shift it worked out well because I got to go on one more call with Samech. And give Samech and Anas their gifts. I had these t-shirts made with a tricked out MDA ambulance on the front and on the back in Hebrew it said "MDA Hip Hop Crew" in honor of our epic EMS inspired dance party. Pictures were taken. And as an added bonus Or, one of my favorite local volunteer (okay probably my favorite) was starting a shift so I got to say hello, take a picture with her and then say a proper see you later (she said something about see you in heaven but that seemed ominous or like she was going to kill me).


So not an exciting call day but well worth it for the people I got to see and spend time with.

First Time Driver

Last night we had a closing ceremony in Jerusalem in which our class, MDA 105 and the current class, MDA 106, who is still in their training were invited for a night of speeches and free stuff. MDA 105 got framed certificates, MDA pins, hats and backpacks. It was a great time to see other volunteers and swap stories. I found that being at one of the smaller stations had a lot of privileges others didn't. I'm able to get to know the drivers, work regularly on an Atan, work 5 shifts a week and the morning shifts have been set aside for our program volunteers. I heard that this was not the case with many of the other stations. So what I give up in having less calls each day, I more than gain in the perks of a small station. After the ceremony we made our way back to the train station in Tel Aviv. On the highway just outside of Jerusalem there was a multi-car accident which was slowing down traffic. We mused about if we should all unload from the bus and see if we could be of some help. You just get this itch when you see something like that. You want to go and help. When we were going by it looked like the MDA units on scene had it taken care of, we even saw the guy pictured above working the scene. Once in Tel Aviv we had sometime to get food and then catch the last train to Akko and arrived about 1:30am. By the time I got home and got ready for today it had to have been after 2am.

The 5:21am wake up call was a little too close to the 2am going to bed time so when I met Emily at the bus station I told her no calls until 10am. When we got to the station a driver was sleeping in the volunteer room so we took our queue and found our own sleeping spots, Emily on a couch and me on a thin mattress on the ground. I got my wish of no calls until after 10am. The first call on the Atan ended up getting canceled before we left the parking spot. I then settled in and read for awhile as Emily went on a variety of calls on the Ragil. Finally after lunch a Ragil call came in while Emily and the other Ragil crew were out so our crew was off to a clinic, that I had been to before, to pick up a middle aged guy who was in some pain from some kind of surgery. All we could do for him was give him some oxygen and get him to the hospital in Haifa as fast as possible. The best part of the call was when I had been instructed to get a hospital bed from one side of the ER and bring it through a narrow office area to the other side so we could transfer our patient. I hadn't really ever wielded a hospital bed like this and it was a very narrow space. I wasn't doing too bad until BAM! I just rock the edge of a desk someone was working at. I think the impact was hard enough to actually move the desk a little bit. Mercifully a hospital worker took the side I slammed into the desk and helped me guide it past the rest of the work station. Slicha guys, first time driver coming through. :)

Nothing

Well I wanted to make the title my only post for the day but it isn't exactly true. I had one call, we unloaded everything. Took it to the third floor only to find out they didn't want to go to the hospital and said they tried to cancel the call before we got there. So we went back down and loaded up and was back off to the station.

The rest of the day was spent reading Three Cups of Tea, we got no other calla on the Atan for the entire day. Ah, emergency medicine, you are a fickle person.

Tomorrow I'll be traveling to Tel Aviv and then Jerusalem for the MDA ceremony in Jerusalem. Emily will be presenting a speech.

Low Pulse Rate

Today I was on the Atan with Aryeh, it was the first time back on the Atan in a couple of days. Our first call brought us to apartments with no elevator (I now look at the apartments as we arrive to try and judge if they will have an elevator or not). Up a few flights of stairs we find the patient, an older lady sitting in a chair in the living room. After hooking up all the monitors and the paramedic doing some treatment we load her up on the chair and carry her down the stairs and get her into the bed. The paramedic had to take blood pressure manually a few times because of the ladies low pulse rate. We got her to the hospital and transferred her.

Our next call was to a local shopping center and after having some difficulties finding the location we were suppose to be at, we find a man who was suffering from chest pain. Monitors got hooked up and we take him down to the ambulance and take him to the hospital. At the hospital it seems it has been a very busy day in the ER because we wait awhile for a bed, another MDA unit arrives with their patient and they start the wait as well. After a bed opens up we transfer the patient and take our leave.

We get a call down to one of the tent cities that has sprung up even in Akko. The patient is visibly in pain but he refuses treatment. So after some attempts at persuading him otherwise he continues to refuse treatment so the paramedic prints up the refuse treatment paperwork and has the man sign it. If a patient refuses treatment there really isn't much we can do other than try to pursued them. The only exceptions are if they are in an altered state of consciousness then there is some wiggle room. So we were on our way.

Our last call of the day was to a car accident. It did not appear anyone was seriously hurt. Both patients walked onto the ambulance and we took their blood pressure and were able to meet a Ragil to transfer them. It is a very nice benefit of being on the Atan, sometimes we can transfer the patients who are not in serious condition so the Atan can stay available. It also means we are spared the long trip to the hospital and possible wait for a bed to open up.

Yom Rishon (Sunday)

Well it ended up, as what i have heard is a pretty common phenomenon, a very busy Yom Rishon. I showed up in the morning and both Shai and Or (two local volunteers) were there. I talked with Or a little bit and watched many local youth volunteers show up for a weeklong training in central Israel. They showed up with their bags packed for the week, you could see the different personalities in the amount of luggage they brought, some a rather large amount of stuff for a week, others a backpack and roller bag. It was right around 8am that the first call came in and I went out on the Ragil with Anas and Yaccov.

The first call was to a fainting. When we arrived at what looked like a warehouse, we walked into an office where a man was laying on the ground with his legs propped up (in proper treatment for shock). I took the man's blood pressure and it looked good. There was some back and forth between the man and Yaccov about going to the hospital but eventually with some help we got the man into the bed and loaded in the ambulance. Blood sugar was taken, again in the okay range and so we transported the patient to the hospital.

The next call took us out to a village somewhere between Akko and Karmi'el. We were called to pick up a boy at a clinic that had abdominal pain. So after loading him up and his parents we were off to the hospital.

After transferring the boy to the pediatric ER room (one that I didn't even know existed until this trip), we got a call for chest pain. We arrived on scene and the guy who called got on the ambulance but then there was some discussion and he said he didn't want to go to the hospital. So he got off the ambulance and we went on our way.

The next call came a little bit later. We were called to the old city of Akko for someone unconscious. When we arrived the patient was conscious but seemed to me like he was in a altered level of consciousness. We loaded him up and transported him to the hospital. When we arrived we were met by a supervisor paramedic which was doing quality checks on ambulances today. He observed what we were doing and spent sometime with Yaccov asking him some questions. After we transferred the patient and Yaccov was done with the review process we were driving back to the station where we came upon a "car accident." It was less than a finder binder and after we stopped and walked back to see what was going on, Yaccov ended up just telling them to take it off the road so they weren't in the middle of traffic.

Our next call was to someone who was threatening to hurt themselves. As we were responding to the call we heard over the radio that we were canceled. So back to the station.

When we got back I joked with Anas that we would get a call in 3 minutes because it was 2:37pm and the transition to the next shift happens at 2:45pm. So the calls right in the last few minutes are the worse because you know you're not getting back in time to leave your shift on time. About a minute later we get a call, I then continue to joke about it being on the fifth floor and all the other things that make for a horrible call. The call was for an older lady who had broken a bone a long time ago and needed to go to the hospital. It wasn't the fifth floor but it was up some flights of stairs. So we got her in the chair and carried her down the stairs. Got her in the bed and then made the slow journey to Haifa where she wanted to go. The ride was hard on her because of the pain and her daughter did her best to help alleviate it with blankets and moving positions but it is a tough thing to do on an ambulance traveling down the highway. After transferring her to the hospital we made the long journey back to Akko. We ended up getting back around 5pm. A busy but long day.

Doctor's Visit

Today was a slow day in Akko. In order to fill up the space I'll have to tell you the calls all of us got today. Emily and I were going to switch off on the Ragil, so the first call Emily took which was for the run to the bank for the deposits. Upon her return we waited and then it was my turn when the buzzer sounded for a Ragil call.

I loaded up on the Ragil with Anas and Yaccov (the volunteer coordinator for the station and a driver). We were dispatched to an apartment to take a patient from his apartment to a doctor's visit and then back home again. So we went up the two flights of stairs (unfortunately there was no elevator) with the chair used to carry people down stairs. We then radioed another ambulance to come and assist. This would be one of Aryeh's calls for the day on the Atan. With Aryeh and I as "supervisors," four guys took the handles on the four corners of the chair and carried the man down the stairs. We loaded him into the ambulance and made the short drive to the clinic. We wheel him in on the ambulance bed, fold it down into the chair and waited for his appointment for a test on the first floor. When he was done we load him back into the chair, waited and then took him to the second floor for his visit with the doctor. We waited again until the doctor's appointment was done and loaded him back into the ambulance for the drive home. The other ambulance was waiting for us at the house and we loaded up the guy in the chair. This time I get a rotation through carrying him up a flight of stairs and then I was replaced and they finished the rest of the climb. Not the most glamourous call but shows another side of the emergency medical system.

The rest of the day was filled with trying to entertain ourselves because there wasn't any other calls that we went on (Aryeh maybe had another but I don't remember). The volunteer's room was being used for a class so we hid out in the driver's room and ended up watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Met a local volunteer who we hadn't met before, his name is Razi. It was nice to chat with him for a little bit. Yaccov found a stash of chocolate somewhere and came to share it with us. That was pretty much our shift for the day.

Tomorrow I'm traveling to Tel Aviv for a little visit. So next blog will be Sunday. Shabbat shalom!