Injuries, deliveries, faintings keep Magen David Adom personnel busy on Yom Kippur

Magen David Adom ambulance staffers were kept busy during Yom Kippur and were called to 2,319 cases - of them, 2,124 involved people needing evacuation to the hospitals.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
A Magen David Adom ambulance stands by near the Western Wall (photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM)
A Magen David Adom ambulance stands by near the Western Wall
(photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM)
Magen David Adom ambulance staffers were kept busy during Yom Kippur and were called to 2,319 events – of them, 2,124 involved people needing evacuation to hospitals.
They included injuries from falling from bicycles and other wheeled objects, road accidents, fainting due to the fast and 116 pregnant women taken to delivery rooms. Seven women gave birth at home, too fast to get to the hospital, and MDA staffers delivered the babies.
A total of 241 adults and children were hurt on rollerblades, skateboards and electric and manual bicycles. Some of them were treated on the spot, while others needed to go to emergency rooms. A 54-year-old bike rider fell while riding from Sha’ar Hagai to the Latrun Junction and was taken to Hadassah- University Medical Center in serious condition with a head injury. A 12-year-old boy fell a height of five meters in the Henkin tunnel in Haifa and was also seriously injured but conscious, when taken to Rambam Medial Center.
There were three injured in road accidents, including one seriously, one moderately and 17 lightly.
A man in his 60s was evacuated when he nearly drowned in the Dead Sea. Other unusual events involved a 12-year-old girl whose hand was stuck in an electric gate at Moshav Avigdor; two of her fingers had to be amputated. A 15-year-old who was doing somersaults hurt himself in Shadmot Devora and was evacuated by ambulance, attached to a respirator, to a hospital.
A baby in Bnei Brak fell out of a three-storey window and was rushed to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.