1,000 local teams to be established near where the threat is most imminent, including communities in the North, the Gaza Border, and Judea and Samaria.
Or Yehuda, Israel (March 25, 2024) — In response to unprecedented challenges presented by the October 7 Hamas attacks, Magen David Adom is training community-based emergency response teams that will provide medical treatment to wounded residents of the local community when terrorists prevent immediate transport to area hospitals.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency services system, is also providing the teams with stores of medical equipment, and connecting them to MDA’s National Operations Center, through which they will be integrated into a vast network of EMTs and paramedics.
Known as the Magen (Hebrew for Shield) Project, the initiative has been designed to address the potential of future military-style sieges that could delay the arrival of lifesaving care.
During the attacks that day, Hamas isolated communities on the Gaza border with heavily armed bands of terrorists, who targeted ambulances and blocked roads in and out of these towns. MDA responded quickly by dispatching EMTs and paramedics from its stations across the country.
But firefights between terrorists and responding police and troops necessitated MDA setting up impromptu treatment clinics until patients could be safely evacuated to area hospitals by ambulance or Medevac helicopter. And in some cases, injured people couldn’t receive help until roads were secured.
By training a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and integrating it with local security professionals, MDA will ensure that injured patients always receive critical care, even on the rare occasion when external teams cannot immediately get to the site of an attack.
Currently, MDA is establishing 1,000 CERTs, comprised of 10 to 25 members per team, in areas where the threat is most imminent, including cities in the North threatened by Hezbollah attacks, Gaza Border communities, and towns in Judea and Samaria. Each team is being provided with emergency medical training and supplies based on local needs, according to Uri Shacham, MDA’s chief of staff.
“The communities are the best authorities on what they need,” he said. “We’re working with each locality in a very personalized way to provide the kind of training and equipment that will be of most use to them.”
Emergency medical training is provided on several levels. For example, MDA provides CERT members who are already EMTs with specialized primary medical care training; it offers paramedics and doctors advanced critical training; and it makes first aid, CPR, and bleeding-control courses available to all members. In addition, MDA will certify two members of each community’s security team as EMTs, so that, when necessary, emergency medical care can be provided even when there’s a widespread threat, and access to the community is temporarily compromised.
Equally critical to the project, Shacham said, are the rescue and equipment vehicles operated by MDA teams. The Multi-Casualty Rescue Units, 10-foot trailers equipped with a large stock of medical supplies to provide treatment for up to 10 seriously wounded and 20 moderately wounded patients, are designed to get supplies to the scene quickly. MDA will also equip hundreds of CERTs with emergency response vehicles assigned to two to three CERT members.
Finally, Magen David Adom will connect each CERT to MDA’s computer-aided dispatch system and create a detailed plan of operation — including the mapping of all equipment, medical professionals, and possible evacuation routes — and codify instructions on how to liaison with MDA. CERT members will be registered in an MDA database and officially dispatched to medical emergencies in their community.
“In the event of an emergency in an isolated community, MDA dispatchers at our operations center will be in contact with the designated community medics, who will describe the urgent needs with the level of detail and speed that is crucial in such scenarios,” said Shacham.
“With resources and training provided by Magen David Adom, and full integration with our cutting-edge dispatch system, we can maximize the potential that already exists in Israel’s towns and neighborhoods,” he added. “Working together, we can ensure that our communities are always fully protected.”
