Right before celebrating his bar mitzvah, Yehuda Neeman met the MDA team who saved his life when he was a toddler.
One Friday afternoon 12 years ago, Dr. Eitan Neeman finished a busy week of shifts as a pediatric resident at Soroka University Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. He was ready to embark on a getaway with his wife, Yael, and their seven children. Dr. Neeman loaded his children into the car and began to drive. Tragically, he had accidentally left their one-year-old son, Yehuda, outside of the car and ran him over.
Dr. Neeman was an active Magen David Adom volunteer and knew to call MDA for help right away while beginning initial medical treatment himself. MDA paramedic Elyashiv Amitay was first on the scene, followed by a Mobile Intensive Care Unit and an MDA helicopter team led by paramedic Moshon Vaknin.
Yehuda, who suffered a head injury and chest burns, was evacuated via helicopter to Soroka Hospital in critical condition. Dr. Neeman found himself returning to the same emergency room at the hospital where he had worked long hours all week, this time as a father, not as a doctor.
Thanks to MDA’s quick and expert assistance, little Yehuda survived. Yehuda remained unconscious for a week and underwent a long rehabilitation, ultimately suffering permanent facial nerve damage and hearing loss.
“It’s not easy to treat a baby, both from a medical standpoint and an emotional one,” reflected Vaknin. “But something inside me believed he would be okay.”
“I personally find it difficult to treat babies, I get very emotionally invested,” Amitay said. “That being said, when the treatment is successful, it’s incredibly rewarding.”
Yehuda grew to be a smart and talented teenager who plays the piano and has dreams of becoming a doctor like his father. Yehuda’s dream intensified about a year and a half ago when Dr. Neeman was killed while serving as a doctor in IDF reserve duty.
“In my last conversation with Eitan, I asked him to take care of himself,” shared Yael Neeman. “He smiled at me and said, ‘You understand that I’m not going to take care of myself, I’m going to take care of others.’”
At his bar mitzvah, Yehuda will wrap his father’s tefillin, which were passed down to him. “Of all our seven children,” said Yael Neeman, “only Yehuda is left-handed, just like Eitan.”
Yehuda recently fulfilled one of his longstanding wishes, to meet the MDA team who saved his life when he was a toddler. At the Sde Teiman helipad where MDA airlifted him to the hospital, Yehuda had an emotional reunion with Vaknin and Amitiai, the MDA paramedics who saved his life 12 years ago.
With a shy smile and tears in his eyes, Yehuda had a chance to thank the paramedics for saving his life.
“It’s a happy moment, but also a sad one,” said Vaknin. “I wish him a happy bar mitzvah and a life full of health and joy.”
Watch Yehuda and Yael Neeman reunite with the MDA paramedics who saved Yehuda’s life 12 years ago:
