Pin and Music Video

(Samech and I. You can see the pin on my right lapel)

Tuesday is cleaning day at the Akko station. So Anas came in to tell us we should pretend to sleep if we didn't want to do yard work. A few moments later Samech came in to rally us for some work, even my fake snoring was not enough to keep me from some physical labor. :) We took out the garbage and swept the brick walk way around the station.

I was on the Ragil today with Samech and Anas. When I got onto the Ragil, Samech was like "Yonatan!" and proceeded to hand me a pin with an American flag, Israeli flag and the Magen David Adom symbol above it as a gift. It is a volunteer pin that American volunteers get. A very nice thing, looks very nice on the lapel of my uniform shirt. I thanked him very much and later on we took a picture (above).

Our first call was to a man who was reported as had fainted. When we arrived he was sitting with his family in front of some apartment. We loaded him on the ambulance and I took blood pressure and pulse. Vitals looked okay. At one point on the way to the hospital Anas asked me how old I thought the guy was, I guessed 60 and was surprised to hear that the patient was in his 90s. He certainly did not look so. After we transferred the patient to the hospital we stopped at a bakery and Samech and I went in to get something good to eat. I got a cinnamon roll and a chocolate baked item. Yum!

After hanging out in the station for a bit we got our next call. This time it was for a patient who looked very sick and hadn't eaten or drank anything in a few days. We loaded him up, I took blood pressure and pulse and we took him to the hospital. After transferring him to the hospital and as we waited for his family to get there to sign some papers, Samech found some rocking music on the radio, turned it up loud and we proceeded to have a little dance party. You know how you have those cheesy dance moves like the shopping cart or lawn mower where you mimic the movements of those everyday activities? Well Samech, Anas and I all were making up dance moves based on what you would do on an ambulance. For example, some of our dance moves would be titled, "Taking the pulse," "CPR (with both compressions and giving breathes)" and "Driving the ambulance," which was one of my favorites because it expanded from a motion of driving the ambulance to include putting the ambulance into drive to radioing dispatch to finally a rendition of turning on the sirens and lights. I said that we should make a music video and we could be the next YouTube sensation. Little did I know that others had beat us to the idea. Samech later on, back at the station, came and showed Emily, Anas and I the following YouTube videos:




Our music video would be closer to the second one than the first.

There was still a medic student assigned to the Atan today so only Aryeh was on the Atan, I took the first few Ragil calls but by late morning Emily was restless and took the remainder of the Ragil calls for the day. I finished my book and took a nap.