A teenager’s life was saved thanks to the resourcefulness of an EMT and the speediness of a paramedic.
Two weeks ago, when 16-year-old Itay Mason was driving in Haifa with his father, they received a phone alert from the Home Front Command indicating that a siren would sound shortly.
They pulled over and ran towards a protected area in an underground parking lot as the siren began, but before they could descend into the parking lot, the Iranian missile landed near them. Mason was seriously injured by shrapnel.
At the same time, EMT Dalia Freihat was also driving in Haifa, not far from where the Masons were driving. She was heading home after finishing her shift as a dispatcher with Magen David Adom.
“The siren caught me on the road and because there wasn’t a safe space near me, I lay down on the sidewalk and protected myself according to the instructions of the Home Front Command,” recalled Freihat.
After the siren ended, Freihat, who was luckily unharmed, realized she was near the site of impact, and searched nearby for people in need of medical assistance. She reached Mason and his father and helped stop Itay’s bleeding. “Itay’s father saw that Itay had significant bleeding and used his shirt to stop the bleeding. When I arrived, I replaced him,” said Freihat.
Meanwhile, Haifa resident Ahmad Zeidan, a MDA paramedic, was at home with his family in their protected room when the missile struck. They heard a loud noise and felt the blast. When they were permitted to leave their bomb shelter, Zeidan saw that the missile caused the windows in his home to shatter and there was glass everywhere. Zeidan reported the blast to MDA and then proceeded to scan the area near his home to check for anyone injured.
MDA dispatched Zeidan to the site alongside the road where Mason had been injured. He rushed to the scene in the Mobile Intensive Care Unit he keeps parked near his home on standby and joined Freihat in providing Mason lifesaving medical treatment before evacuating him to the hospital.
A week later, Mason was released from the hospital and Freihat and Zeidan paid him a visit at his home.
Mason hugged them and said, “thank you, you are my heroes.”
