On Monday evening just after 9:00 p.m., a sixty-year-old man collapsed on HaMif’al Street in the city or Or Yehuda, a person called emergency services for help and the nearest EMT ran to help.
United Hatzalah volunteer, EMT Shlomie Tzadok, was on his way to attend a Torah class that was being held near his home in Or Yehuda. Despite being on summer vacation from his job as a teaching assistant, Shlomi made sure to prioritize the Mitzvah of Torah learning, no matter how hectic his schedule proved to be. However, shortly after arriving at the class, Shlomie’s communications device rang out, alerting him to a medical emergency taking place nearby.
Without hesitation, Shlomie lept from his seat, jumped on his ambucycle, and raced to the emergency, arriving in less than two minutes.
As the first medical responder at the scene, Shlomie saw that the man was unconscious and not breathing. He did a quick check of the vital signs and found that the man had no pulse. Shlomie notified the United Hatzalah dispatcher and began to perform CPR in an effort to maintain the patient’s circulation until other responders arrived.
Other responders did arrive after several minutes and joined Shlomie in his efforts to resuscitate the man. An ambulance arrived seven minutes later and their team joined in the effort as well. After an hour of intense chest compressions and two shocks from a defibrillator, the combined team succeeded in bringing back the patient’s pulse. The man was subsequently whisked off to the hospital for further treatment.
Despite the exhaustive nature of such an intense call, Shlomie left the scene feeling invigorated and thankful for having played a part in United Hatzalah’s life-saving mission. “In situations like these where every second counts, I feel immense appreciation and gratitude towards the organization and its donors worldwide for supplying the necessary equipment and supplies that allow me to carry out our holy mission,” Shlomie said.
Shlomie added, “I was sad that I wasn’t able to participate in the Torah lesson that I had set out to attend. But I headed back to the synagogue in order to pick up on the class and learn a bit on my own. I chose to learn some Pirkei Avot (a tractate of Mishna) which is customary to study on Shabbat afternoons during the summer months.”
The Mishna Shlomie happened to learn was particularly poignant. In the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avot, Ben Azzai said: ‘Run (to perform) a Mitzvah…because a Mitzvah leads to another Mitzvah.’”
“This held true for me tonight,” Shlomie said. “I headed out tonight to study Torah and in the merit of that learning, I additionally merited to save the life of a fellow Jew. What could be better than that?”
