MDA israel

Meet Oshrit Haddad, a 22-year-old Paramedic for 3 years at Ashdod station

“We woke up at 6:30 a.m to the sound of sirens in the south, realizing something abnormal was unfolding.
Amit Man z.l, a Paramedic and a friend of mine since we were youth volunteers, was working at Kibbutz Be'eri that day.
since the morning throughout the whole day I kept in touch with her. She told me about what was going on in the Kibbutz, and I tried to
help her as much as I could.
At 2 p.m she stopped responding.

I was not able to reach her, and the realization dawned on me. I was hoping she was alive and well, yet knew the odds were not in her favor.
With that in mind I headed to MDA Netivot station.
I opened an Intensive Care Unit and drove off towards Be'eri. Many bodies were lying on the side of the road. We arrived at Shuva Junction, where just a few minutes away Kibbutzim including Be'eri, Sa'ad and Re'im were getting attacked, and opened a triage station. There we provided life-saving treatment to soldiers and civilians.

We set up five field stretchers spread out side by side, medical equipment next to each - BVM (for ventilation), oxygen, intubation set, bandages, tourniquets, IV lines. We placed projectors to light the area, and a table with all the extra equipment we had, bandages, medications, anesthetics.
Several IDF Soldiers kept the improvised station on guard.
The army connected us with unit 669 (Search and Rescue) and with other forces headed to us, so we could asses and prepare for the casualties.
The wounded started coming in. We acted quickly, treating patients and stabilizing their condition, and within 10 minutes we evacuated them to the ambulances or helicopters.

Multiple times we were warned of terrorists headed in our way and were called to move out to a different location. Still, I didn't linger on the possibility of such scenario happening.
Gunshots and explosions were fired in distance constantly. We were all certain of our necessity in this vital situation and determined to carry out our mission, and so we stayed.
At a certain point we received a call from the dispatch center, warned us of terrorist racing our way on motorcycles, and yelled for us to evacuate immediately.

Terrorist were about to seize us at any moment. I stood there in despair, surrounded by my patients. And so we loaded them all on ambulances and ran off. I can't imagine what would have happened if we wouldn't have been able to get out of there in time.

For 48 hours we worked almost non-stop. There were so many casualties. We treated the injured, evacuating to Soroka hospital, transferring to MDA helicopter, patient one after the other.
Sunday morning, we returned to Netivot, where we got a break to take a shower and reorganize. Right after we headed back out. I haven't slept in days. Saturday till Tuesday evening I haven't had a moment of rest. 

There was one wounded soldier from a Special Forces unit who was shot all over his limb. Even with tourniquet on he still wouldn't let us treat his wounds. He insisted on us giving him pain killers so he could go back and keep on fighting.
He was stubborn, yet eventually we managed to convince him to stay and receive treatment.

Another soldier in critical condition which I treated, asked me to say Shema Israel with him. He requested I tell his family that he loves them, misses them and that he has done everything in his power to protect them.

It will take time to process what has unfolded, but in the meantime I want to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to all those who fought beside me and took part in saving lives.