Just before 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a man in his 60s with a pre-existing heart condition told his family members that he wasn’t feeling well. His worried family called emergency services for help. United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Yahav Kalfon was eating a late breakfast when he received the emergency alert from United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center.
Yahav grabbed his bicycle helmet and jacket and ran for the door. He jumped on his emergency electric bicycle (e-bike) and raced to the nearby address, arriving just ahead of a local ambulance. Yahav quickly locked his bicycle and raced upstairs followed by the ambulance crew. They found the man conscious but in need of medical attention. As members of the ambulance team took the man’s vitals, Yahav went back downstairs to bring up the stretcher to enable the man to be transported. When he returned, he found the man unconscious with the ambulance crew initiating CPR on him.
Yahav quickly saw that the team was in need of assistance and switched out the person doing compressions. Yahav maintained strong compressions at a quick pace for two minutes when the ambulance driver stopped him to check the man’s pulse and much to the team’s surprise, found that it had returned.
The team checked the man’s blood pressure and found that it was low and they maintained assisted ventilation to help the man breathe. After another two minutes, the man’s systolic blood pressure rose above 90 and thus returned to a normal range. For now, he was out of danger and the CPR was a success.
“Sometimes I marvel at the way the world works,” Yahav said after the CPR. “I have a car that I use to respond to medical emergencies that are far away or on the highways, but in Akko, there are many streets that are too narrow or too congested to enable a first responder with a car to arrive quickly. Just last week I received this emergency E-Bike and already today it was instrumental in helping me arrive quickly at the scene of this emergency and help save this man’s life. I am proud to be a first responder with United Hatzalah and help those around me who are in need of medical attention.”