It’s uncommon to find such adult poise in a teenager.
Seventeen-year-old
Arina Shestopolov Censor holds herself with assurance and meets the eyes of the
local cameras with flair. What’s even more uncommon is that she had that same
cool assurance while treating Nati Hachakur, a young man who was wounded when a
Grad missile fell nearby.
Seriously injured in the attack, Hachakur would
have bled to death without Arina’s jury-rigged tourniquets. She managed to save
his life, despite her lack of formal training and in the midst of the havoc that
followed the missile attack, including nearby fires and continued missile
fire.
When two Grad missiles fell on Beersheba on August 20, Arina and
her father Tslil didn’t hesitate. Hearing the cries of Lior George, a BGU
student studying mechanical engineering, they rushed out of their building to
help, she recounted to BGU President Rivka Carmi on Thursday.
Carmi had
just presented her with a certificate of appreciation for her efforts and a full
scholarship offer to BGU.
Tslil recalled that he thought Nati had been
killed because he couldn’t find a pulse.
“I moved on to Lior because I
couldn’t find a pulse and his eyes were closed,” he said.
However, as
Arina came sprinting out after him, she noticed Nati open his eyes.
“I
found some cloth and a stick and I made a tourniquet. The first two tore
[and didn’t manage to stop the bleeding], but the third one held,” Arina
recalled. Thanks to Arina’s efforts, Nati’s life was saved.
Arina, who
has no formal medical training whatsoever, had recalled the diagrams in a book
her father had given her to read five years before about emergency
situations.
The last time I had looked at the book I was 12, but the
diagrams just floated into my mind,” she said. Despite the lack of training,
Arina and her father’s actions saved Nati and Lior’s lives, Dr. Michael Sherf,
director-general of Soroka University Medical Center confirmed.
“When
Nati was brought in to the ER, we took a picture of Arina’s makeshift
tourniquet. I want to use it to teach this generation how to improvise materials
from what’s at hand. Without their help, Nati would not have made it,” he said
Thursday.
While not formally trained, Tslil brought her up to be
constantly aware.
“He always says ‘panic kills, and Israeli children need
to be aware,’” she said.
Prof. Carmi applauded Arina and Tslil and
stressed how important his lessons were.
“It should not be taken for
granted that a girl with no training should be so strong, so brave and so cool
under fire to do what you did,” she declared warmly to Arina.
Turning to
Tslil, she said, “We cannot take our existence here for granted. Whoever chooses
to live here has to care and to be aware. We have to educate our children
accordingly as well.”
Arina’s ties to BGU are longstanding.
Her
grandfather, Dan Censor, is a professor emeritus of electrical engineering. He
and his wife, Dalia, who recently retired from being a librarian at the Zalman
Aranne Central Library, were also present at the ceremony.
Arina is also
the youngest member of Aharai, a local group run by the BGU Student Association
to prepare local high school students for the army. In addition to physical
fitness training, they volunteer in the community and are involved in leadership
training programs.
While Arina preferred to keep her ambitions in the IDF
to a vague, “I’m aiming high,” her father confirmed that “she wants to be a
pilot in the air force.”
And then perhaps a career in medicine? “We’ll
have to wait and see,” she said.