14 minute read
United Hatzalah Member Kalanit Taub Shares Her Experience
UNITED TO HELP
United Hatzalah Member Kalanit Taub Shares Her Experience
BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Kalanit, thank you for your time. I know that you must be reeling from the events last Thursday night in Meron. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you joined United Hatzalah.
I moved to Israel 17 years ago and live in Efrat with my family. I joined Hatzalah a year and a half ago. You’ll be surprised by why I joined Hatzalah.
Did you see, around 2½ years ago, a video by Nas Daily about United Hatzalah? Nas Daily makes 1-minute videos every day, and he made a 3-minute video about United Hatzalah because their response time is 3 minutes or less. I made a comment on the video saying that my goal is to someday be an EMT. After the video came out, someone told me that an EMT course was starting in Efrat two weeks later. And so, I joined the course. The course took about 6 months and was a very intense course.
So, this was your first time at Meron with Hatzalah, as there was no hilula there last year.
Actually, this was the first time in my life that I was ever at Meron.
How many other United Hatzalah members were there at Meron?
I didn’t see everyone, but I heard, and it makes sense to me, that there were around 500 Hatzalah EMTs there.
What were you expecting when you came to Meron in the capacity as an EMT?
I was at Kever Rachel a bit over a year ago, at the hilula of Rachel Imeinu, and I was expecting it to be pretty much the same – people getting stepped on, people fainting, people not feeling well. At Kever Rachel, someone I treated was diabetic and hadn’t eaten the whole time while she was waiting to get to the tzion, so that’s what I was expecting to see.
In Meron, most of the time, I was in the ambulance. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the layout of Meron, but they don’t allow private cars to come all the way to the tzion. There are a bunch of different parking lots – it’s all super-organized – all around. People park their cars and then walk up to the kever. You can have people fainting in the parking lots or while they were walking on the side of the road because they couldn’t get a bus, people can feel sick or be dehydrated. The need for medical response is not just at Meron itself but also on the road to Meron and the parking lots around.
I was in the ambulance, and we were going around to different parking lots based on where the medical need was.
When the call came out for help, we were right by the entrance to Meron, we were not actually in Meron in the center of things. We were actually right by the command post.
What was the call that went out?
We actually got a call that a building collapsed. As we were going up the hill, we were hearing that there’s a CPR ongoing, then two CPRs, then three CPRs…by the time we got to the top of the hill – which didn’t take too long – we were hearing that there were five ongoing CPRs, which is really not typical. At a really bad accident, we’ll have one or two CPRs. Hearing that – five CPRs going on – sounded like this was going to be intense and big and catastrophic.
We got to a point with the ambulance which was as far as we could
go. The rest we needed to go on foot. The driver of the ambulance told me to find someone who is injured and bring them back to the ambulance so we can transport them to the hospital, if needed.
So four of us took a backboard and ran through the crowds down the hill (it’s on a hill and you have to go up and down through the hill), and the crowds were showing us, this way, this way. As we were running down the hill, there were stretchers coming up the hill with people holding each corner of the stretcher and a person running alongside the stretcher doing chest compressions.
The staircase where the tragedy occurred let out at this little slope, 50-60 meters long, which was slick and wet with water. As we were coming up this slope, there were bodies lying on the side of the slope. People were saying – the term used in the field of someone, unfortunately, already declared dead is X – so people were saying, these are already Xs – sadly, they had passed way.
As we were running, we were not the only ones coming to help with a backboard. There was a row of six or seven before us holding stretchers and backboards, running to the scene.
Border patrol soldiers were putting people on stretchers. When it was our turn, they put a body on the stretcher, and we went down to this clearing area by the bleachers so we could work on the person. We put the person down and started giving chest compressions and CPR. Everywhere you looked, the whole area, was filled with more and more people giving chest compressions and CPR. There were 20+ CPRs ongoing at the same time. It was an overwhelming feeling.
What were you thinking at the time? One of the things that was going through my head at the time was that I don’t see anyone injured. All I’m seeing are chest compressions; all I’m seeing is CPRs. When you’re training to become an EMT and during training while you are an EMT already, they always tell you to first treat the people who are severely wounded because those are the people you are most likely to save. But there were no wounded. All I saw was CPRs. Endless CPRs.
I was doing CPR on a man and a paramedic came up to me and said,
“I’ll take over. You go to the next person.” I went to the next person to take over – generally after two minutes someone takes over for you, if possible – and he was sweating. He was probably doing CPR on this man for a long time. It’s very exhausting to do. But everyone was doing CPR on different people, so there was no one to take over for him. But I went to him, and I took over for him. But then, a short while later, the paramedic came over to me and told me that the person he was working on didn’t make it and that he would take over for me and I should take over for someone else.
And so I did. I went to the next person. And a short while later, the paramedic came and told me that the person he was working on didn’t make it, and that he would take over for me. It kept on happening. I would take over for someone, and then someone would come over to me to tell me that the previous person had passed away. Ten people in a row. It was devastating. Everyone we did CPR on didn’t make it. There was nothing to do for them.
It got to the point that I looked around, and no one was doing CPR anymore. Everyone around us on the floor had passed away, unfortunately. It was so sad.
We moved the bodies and covered
them and lined them up one after the other. What a terrible sight.
What was your feeling at all this horror?
As EMTs, we’re trained that when you respond to a call, you don’t have feelings. Any feelings or thoughts you have, you put to the side. You just think of what you need to do. And what I needed to do never ended.
I’m also a member of the psycho-trauma unit at Hatzalah. So, after the crisis, after we realized that the people had died and when everyone injured had been taken away, there were many people in Meron dealing with severe psycho-trauma. Remember when I told you about the people running up the hill with stretchers? You have thousands of people who were severely traumatized by seeing bodies and seeing CPR performed.
I spent around three hours walking around the site, going up to people, asking if they’re OK, if they need help. Most of the people responded that they were OK, but I came across people who were incapable of answering me. They were in shock from what they saw and needed help from a psycho-trauma perspective. I tried to help them to function again – basic things like being able to call family members. Some people were crying in hysteria. Some people were just staring off into space because they were so traumatized.
I probably treated around 100 people just from a psycho-trauma perspective. People who were frozen in place and unable to function. Some people were laying on the ground in fetal positions.
The whole time when we were walking around, we kept on hearing announcements on the sound system. Zaka had a huge tent set up in Meron, and it became the place to take all the kids who were separated from their parents until they could be reunited with them. So, as we were walking around, the whole time, you heard, “Mendy, six years old, dressed like this, looking for his father, lives in Jerusalem.” Or “Chaim, age 8, from Bnei Brak, looking for his father.” One name after another, after another, non-stop, playing on the loudspeaker – all these kids who were separated from their parents. Pure chaos.
Can you give us a timeline of the events?
The call came out for help around 1 a.m.
By about 2 a.m. there was no longer anyone to treat. Anyone injured was already on an ambulance. But from a psycho-trauma perspective, I was treating people until 5 a.m. And
after I left, there were people there helping people and treating them. Most of the people there, I can guess, were traumatized by what happened. It was chaos. It’s nothing you ever expected to see.
I always imagined that, at a mass casualty event, I would be treating injured people. But here, all I saw were people performing CPR, and none of them were successful. One person, after another, declared dead again and again and again. You look around the courtyard, and not one of the people there did we merit to save. In reality, they were already dead before we tried to save them.
As an EMT, all you want to do it save people. And we couldn’t. It’s a really hard feeling that you want to save lives and you can’t.
You must be dealing with your own trauma.
One of the things I love about United Hatzalah is that they’re very aware that it’s traumatizing to involved in these events. On Motzei Shabbos and on Sunday, in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak, Petach Tikveh, Haifa, Ashdod, Beer Sheva, Elad – all around the country – they had meet-ups with EMTs and psychologists to help you talk about what you saw and to process it. You’re not alone. You’re not the only person to experience this trauma.
Normally, by a mass casualty event, you have a meet-up of everyone who was there, but usually they all live in the area. But this was such a large scale, nothing like it, and everyone came from all over Israel to help at Meron, so they needed all these meetings around the country.
The people who came to these meet-ups weren’t just EMTs. There was a woman there who was not an EMT but she said she heard an EMT asking for oxygen and all the other EMTs were busy, so she brought a bag over and brought him oxygen. And then he put a mask on the person’s face – this person was injured – and he showed her how to squeeze the bag to help with the oxygen. She had no EMT training, but there was a need and so she helped. These meet-ups were open to anyone who was there who helped to treat the victims and felt like they needed a group counseling session afterwards.
Were the police involved in helping at the site as well?
Yes. The Border Patrol is part of the police. They were handing us the Do they know the cause of what caused the tragedy?
I have no idea. And I’ve been trying to avoid it. I’m an EMT. My job is to treat the people. My job is not to see why it happened. When I go to a car accident, people are yelling, “It’s
people from the staircase. Many of them are trained EMTs as well. Anyone who had any basic training was helping. The whole scene was everyone unified to do whatever they could to save as many lives as possible.
That was the feeling I felt at the scene – everyone was doing whatever they could to save people’s lives – whether you were the police or Hatzalah or you were the woman who had no training who was there just to help. There was one woman – I have no idea who she was – but what she did was so useful. She took a 24pack of water bottles and she handed water bottles to people so they could drink as they were working on people. That also was a very necessary thing at the scene. And she did it. The little things that people did to help – a spontaneous support staff, in a way. Everybody who was there in the courtyard worked together to save lives. But it was such a devastating feeling to know that we weren’t able to save any lives of the people we were trying to do CPR on.
his fault,” “It’s his fault,” and I say, “I don’t care. My job is to help you medically.”
I’m here to treat the people. My goal is to save lives. It’s not about the “why.”
Is there a way to enjoy Meron on Lag B’Omer in a safe way?
Honestly, I don’t know. I will say this: everything was livestreamed. There were cameras livestreaming everything. It’s scary to be in a place with crowds like that. In a way, the safest place to be is to watch it from afar. When there are crowds, people push and shove – that’s normal. People faint, they’re stepped on, they have panic attacks. But disasters can happen. Even if I can, in the future, go to Meron as an EMT, I wouldn’t want anyone from my family to go. And I’m not just talking about Meron – I’m talking about any mass gathering on that scale. It can be very scary.
I’m sure you’re reliving that night.
You know, the people who passed away, who we were working on, they just looked asleep. They didn’t look injured.
One thing I’m thankful for: I didn’t treat any kids. But the people I treated, it is so tragic. Their lives were cut short.
I refuse to look at the pictures of those who passed away. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see who I did CPR on. It’s too hard. It’s not just a picture of a random person. This is a face of someone who passed away and I was there when it happened.
A lot of the people who I spoke to didn’t understand the magnitude of it, despite the fact that they followed the news. I don’t even know if I can convey the magnitude of so much death in one place. Someone was describing to me that he was at Versailles Wedding Hall when the building collapsed. At that time, they took out the bodies from the building one at a time, but here, all the bodies were there at once. It was very traumatic. A huge tragedy.
Kalanit, we are all reeling from the tragedy. This was a once-in-a-lifetime, horrifying event for Klal Yisroel.
I appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing your experience with us. Thank you for all the work you do to help Klal Yisroel. May you continue to have strength to be there for others, and may you continue to do good work for Am Yisroel.
