Hillel
HillelUnited Hatzalah

On Sunday morning at 3:40 a.m., United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Hillel Hamoi was just preparing to go to bed. He had just come home from Jerusalem, where he attended Selichot prayers with a number of friends from Holon. As he was about to go to sleep, the siren on his emergency alert phone began to blare, alerting him to a medical emergency in his close proximity.


Hillel quickly put his shoes back on and donned his ambucycle helmet and jacket and raced downstairs to his parked vehicle. He heard the dispatcher announce the address of the emergency. A man in his 60s had collapsed and was unconscious a few streets down from his. Hillel raced to the address and found a woman waiting downstairs for him. It was the man’s wife and she quickly ushered Hillel upstairs telling him that her husband was unconscious. Hillel found the man on his living room floor, and after a quick check of the man’s vital signs, he relayed back to dispatch that the man was not breathing and without a pulse and that he was beginning CPR.


Hillel attached a defibrillator to the man’s chest which advised one shock. Hillel then proceeded to administer compressions for the next few minutes by himself. Sometime later a mobile intensive care ambulance arrived and joined Hillel in trying to save the man’s life.


The team spent the next 50 minutes trying to revive the man and bring his pulse back. An hour after Hillel had arrived at the apartment, their efforts paid off and the man’s pulse came back. Hillel assisted the ambulance crew in prepping and loading the patient onto the ambulance to be taken to the nearest hospital.


“The paramedic from the ambulance called me later in the morning to thank me for my help and told me that the patient began to regain consciousness once he got to the hospital," said Hillel. "It was a great feeling to hear this. I enjoy helping others, it gives me a lot of meaning in my life, especially saving a life right after I came back from Selichot. I am thankful to hear that this man is on the way to making a full recovery, and even though the incident happened in the middle of the night, I am glad that I was able to respond and save his life."