Magen David Adom, the world’s most experienced mass-casualty response organization, never stops preparing for Israel’s next emergency — whether it be a natural or man-made disaster.
Thankfully, the following scenario is fiction: a missile slams into the bleachers of Haifa’s Sammy Ofer soccer stadium when 30,000 fans fill every seat. Dozens are killed and injured, possibly hundreds. Even though this has never happened, “that’s not to say that it never will,” says Magen David Adom’s head of disaster response, Senior Paramedic Lt. Col. (res.) Felix Lotan.
Israel is one of no more than a handful of countries whose emergency medical service system is national. “An important part of our job is to prepare for crisis. We’re charged by Israel’s 1950 Magen David Adom Law to manage the medical response to any type of disaster affecting the country’s population, whether as a result of extreme weather, fire or flood, earthquake or hazmat, terror or war,” Lotan explains.
Large-scale drills
The simulated disaster at the Sammy Ofer stadium was the finale of a three-day drill held in March. Part of a continuum of cross-agency drills conducted each year, it was the largest and most complex that Magen David Adom (MDA) has ever led. MDA teams worked with Israel’s police force, fire and rescue services, the City of Haifa, the IDF’s Home Front Command and its reservist EMTs and paramedics, responding throughout the three days of the exercise to simulated mortar fire into Israel across the northern border, rocket attacks on Haifa, and shootings in five civilian sites, in addition to the multi-casualty stadium scenario.
Read the full article in “The Power of Giving” by Haaretz>>
