MDA Teams Treat 3,322 People Across Israel During Yom Kippur
As Israel largely came to a stop for Yom Kippur, Magen David Adom teams remained on duty nationwide. Throughout the 25-hour fast, MDA EMTs and paramedics treated 3,322 people, evacuated 2,268 patients to hospitals and helped deliver five babies.
Each year on Yom Kippur, daily life across Israel changes dramatically. Businesses close, public transportation stops, and most cars disappear from the roads as millions observe the day through fasting, prayer and reflection.
For MDA, however, the work continues.
Throughout this year’s Yom Kippur, MDA EMTs and paramedics provided medical treatment to 3,322 people nationwide, evacuating 2,268 patients to hospitals for further care.
The 25-hour fast also brings its own medical challenges. MDA teams treated 368 people who fainted, became dehydrated or felt unwell while fasting.
With most vehicle traffic absent on Yom Kippur, Israel’s usually busy streets traditionally fill with children and families riding bicycles, scooters, rollerblades and skateboards. This year, MDA treated 299 people injured in related accidents, including nine who sustained moderate injuries.
MDA teams also responded to 46 people injured in road traffic collisions. Two people were killed, while one patient was critically injured, one seriously injured, three moderately injured and 39 mildly injured.
Another 40 people were treated following incidents of violence, including one fatality, one person who was seriously injured and five who sustained moderate injuries.
Amid the thousands of emergency calls, MDA teams also helped welcome new life.
During Yom Kippur, MDA ambulances transported 155 women in labor to hospitals across Israel. Five babies, arrived before their mothers reached the delivery room. MDA teams assisted in delivering three boys in Bnei Brak, Jerusalem and Hashmonaim, and two girls in Ashdod and Yavne’el.
MDA’s work continued behind the scenes as well. The organization’s Blood Services supplied hospitals across Israel with 152 units and blood components, helping ensure lifesaving blood remained available throughout the holiday.
For 25 hours, much of Israel paused. But across the country, MDA’s EMTs, paramedics, dispatchers, blood-service teams and volunteers remained ready to answer every call, from medical emergencies and injuries to five new lives beginning on the holiest day of the Jewish year.
