Eli Beer
Subject: Using Networks of Volunteer EMTs
Bio: Founder and President of United Hatzalah of Israel, and President of the U.S.-based organization Friends of United Hatzalah.
Transcript:
Larry Bernstein:
Welcome to What Happens Next. My name is Larry Bernstein. What Happens Next is a podcast which covers economics, politics, and culture.
Today’s topic is Using Networks of Volunteer EMTs.
Our speaker is Eli Beer who is the founder and president of United Hatzalah. I want to learn from Eli about his idea of creating a network of volunteers who are available in an emergency to provide medical care for their neighbors.
Alright, let's open with how your organization got started. Tell us what the catalyst was, how it's developed and why it's so innovative.
Eil Beer:
Growing up in Jerusalem, I saw a bus blow up in front of my eyes. I was a very young. People were lying there. No one was helping them; people running away. The bus was on fire. This man was screaming for help. I just ran away leaving him on the floor. And for years that scene was haunting me.
I studied to be an EMT. Many people who needed us by the time we got there, it was too late. We would get there in an average of 17 minutes. People were not breathing by the time we got there. They either were brain damaged or dead.
I said, “why is it that when we're stuck in the back of an ambulance, we see motorcycles passing us delivering pizza and we're in an ambulance with sirens and we can't move.” But these pizza guys, they're just getting to the destinations immediately when the pizza's hot and we're getting there when the patients are cold. And I said, “I'm going to make ambulances on motorcycles and let the pizza guys go on an ambulance.”
Larry Bernstein:
That's fantastic. Describe what that ambulance looks like, how the training is different and how you end up saving lives by getting there sooner. How does that change the interaction with the patient?
Eil Beer:
When any person stops breathing, you have less than two minutes to save them. I was 16 years old, seeing a child that choked and it took us 21 minutes to get to that little child and we did CPR on him. The doctor pronounced him dead. In that moment, I was devastated. Why didn't the doctor who lived across the street come and save him? And I said, I'm going to get volunteers to come much faster than an ambulance.
Volunteers from around the corner, people are willing to stop everything to save other people for free. I went to an ambulance organization that I volunteered. It's like Uber of Lifesavers. Volunteers don't charge money, they come to save because they live in the community. It's a network of emergency responders that will come immediately. And the ambulance services said, no, we're not going to share calls with you because if someone calls for help, they must get an ambulance.
I was stuck with a great idea and I was frustrated that I couldn't implement it. And I said, I'm 16 years old, I'm not going to let my dream of saving lives go away.
I decided to use some Israeli chutzpah. I'll do it anyways. This was in 1989 I had $700. I bought two police scanners. I opened an underground command center listening to the police, fire and ambulances, and I heard all the calls coming in and I got 15 volunteers and gave each one a pager. These pagers, Hezbollah uses them now.
Larry Bernstein:
Sure. I'm very familiar with the gold pagers.
Eil Beer:
So that's what we used in the beginning. And our volunteers would get the calls on pagers and run to save lives. We started saving people every day. I saved the man who was hit by a car because I got there in 35 seconds because I heard the walkie talkie police scanner, shouting out for an ambulance to respond. I was around the corner.
Quickly, we got to 30 and 40 and 50. We bought a few old motorcycles and put oxygen tanks in the back. Eventually we got some defibrillators and that's how we started United Hatzalah. These motorcycle ambulances were never done anywhere.
Larry Bernstein:
What equipment do you have on the motorcycle that distinguishes it from what's available on a modern ambulance in the United States? What are you missing?
Eil Beer:
It's exactly the same as an ambulance besides the stretcher. I imagine in New York a response time of an ambulance is probably 9-11 minutes. The ambulance cycles could get there in 90 seconds. The stretcher eventually will come with an ambulance and they will come after. The guys on the ambulance cycles will start stabilizing and saving the patient. When the ambulance arrives, they take the patient without brain damage to the hospital. And that's the big difference.
Larry Bernstein:
We have a war with Tehran firing ballistic missiles into Israel. How is your organization responding to that? How are they helping people?
Eil Beer:
It started on October 7th. We received the first alerts from people that were dancing in the Nova Festival. A lot of people were wasted and didn't realize what was happening in the beginning and then they realized people were dying around them. We usually get 2000 calls a day. We got 556 calling in one minute. We couldn't handle it. Our systems almost fell apart.
They told me one of the volunteers that responded to save lives at a police station was attacked by Hamas. They shot him on his face, chest and stomach. I'm used to emergencies happening all day and night, but our volunteers were under fire.
We got calls from all around the south of Israel. We had volunteers jump out of bed leaving their families in bomb shelters and running out to save people's lives. That day three of our volunteers died trying to save people's lives. One of them was ran out of his house to save the Bibas family. And he never returned home. His wife was pregnant and he had three kids and his wife gave birth two months later. He gave his life for saving other people's lives.
And we had another volunteer who ran into the Nova Festival, an Arab volunteer of United Hatzalah who gave his life for other people.
This is a lot bigger than a terrorist attack, but our volunteers, instead of getting scared got even more motivated to help. We couldn't stop them. We told them how dangerous it is. And that day we treated twelve and a half thousand people.
I feel like every day I'm living October 7th. Iran is another phase of this war. This started October 7th. This was all an idea coming from Iran. Hamas trained their people in Iran. We knew the head of the snake is Iran and they were planning to start it in a small way. They thought Hamas and Hezbollah were able to kill all of us. And they saw that's not happening. So that's when they started enriching more and more uranium and they were planning to have a nuclear weapon. And they were saying they're going to eliminate every one of us.
The most important part of this whole October 7th war is Iranians. My biggest wish would be to change the regime in Iran and free Iran, this will be the best thing for the whole Middle East and for the world. It's a war that we're doing for everyone, not only for us.
Larry Bernstein:
How does having your first responders in a network change the dynamics inside Israel during a war to have a rapid response to injuries?
Eil Beer:
I think that Israel became a more volunteering society because of United Hatzalah. People realize they can make a difference and be local heroes. We created this organization with a small group of 15. Now we're over 8,000. But many other groups in different areas started. They have a group in Israel that volunteer to help people change flat tires because of United Hatzalah. They're not paid professionals, they're just volunteers.
Why don't we do this for helping people who are stuck out of their homes and they don't have a key or people who have security watch neighborhood volunteers. When you have a volunteer society, you have a much better society. And Israel now has hundreds of thousands of volunteers doing incredible things. United Hatzalah is one of the anchors and innovators in this whole arena.
Larry Bernstein:
Do you do training for the volunteers?
Eil Beer:
It takes around six months to train. You could be a business person, you could be a taxi driver, you need to have a job in order to join us. We want people who have a stable life. After you finish your training, we give you medical supplies, a defibrillator, a trauma bag, and a walkie talkie. We have an app that follows you wherever you are, so you get a call based on the distance you are to the person who needs you. And the idea is that we have volunteers on-call 24/7.
They train for six months, and then they're on call for the rest of their lives.
Larry Bernstein:
Do you do anything unusual in your training that would be different than a normal EMT program because they're volunteers?
Eil Beer:
We do protection training. They have to learn Krav Maga. A lot of them are from the army, but the ones who are not, we train them because they never know where they're going to end up, like October 7th. We could surprise them with a massive casualty incident, and we want to see how they operate, how they do triage.
These are not regular EMTs that you train to do a heart attack, stroke or choking emergency. What do you do when a building collapsed and you have 300 people injured? Who do you treat first? People need to have training to feel comfortable enough to go into a scene like that.
Our volunteers, they're experts in trauma. Ee have the most well-trained EMTs and paramedics in the world.
Larry Bernstein:
For us living in the United States, should it be adapted here as well?
Eil Beer:
This should be in every community. ELA now is almost in every Jewish community in America. They even have Miami ELA, South Florida and JAC and other organizations that are similar ideas. I got news yesterday that they're starting United ELA in the country Columbia, not the university that's too dangerous for us. They have it in 45 cities around the world. The idea should be everywhere.
Larry Bernstein:
Is the idea the motorcycle or is the idea volunteer networks?
Eil Beer:
The idea is not only ambu-cycles, it's the network. Because some areas you don't need ambu-cycles. Let's say if you have a rural area where the volunteers are farmers driving tractors or pickup trucks. They could respond to calls nearby them much quicker than an ambulance that comes from 45 minutes away. The ambu-cycle is very good for the cities that are congested. We have some cities in Israel that volunteers drive their bicycles. They're very small areas that even ambu-cycles are too big.
Larry Bernstein:
How does the regular ambulance community interact with this?
Eil Beer:
Well, the ambulances don't like us too much because we come for free. And many times, we get there so quick it doesn't make them look too good. They started copying us with the whole ambi-cycle idea many years after we started. Competition is great. They became much better. We actually have a great relationship. We work every single day together.
If God forbid a child is in the pool drowning, CPR can save that child. An ambulance will not save a child because by the time that child gets an ambulance, it's too late. And this is the idea that we show the path to others. And I preach about it all day and I travel around the world talking about this. The Lieutenant Governor of Iowa came to Israel to our headquarters. He said, this makes sense for Iowa too, because Iowa has rural areas that ambulances take two hours to get there. We could train truck drivers and train everyone to save lives and they could be responders until an ambulance shows up.
Larry Bernstein:
Israel is a multi-religious country. Tell us how you interact with religious minorities in Israel.
Eil Beer:
This is the thing I'm most proud of after saving lives. We were able to unite people. Israel has every type of religion. We opened up United Hatzalah for every volunteer who wants to join. And it created a beautiful mosaic of Israeli society. There is 10 million people living in Israel, 20% of them are not Jewish and they don't have racism. These people are part of society. And United Hatzalah is an example of it.
Larry Bernstein:
How do Christians and Muslims interact with your organization? Are they patients? Are they volunteers? Are they ambulance drivers? What are they doing?
Eil Beer:
They are like every one of us. They have paramedics, EMTs and doctors who volunteer for us. I have a volunteer named Mohammed. He's an EMT. He's 24/7 on call. He lives in Jerusalem and he was on the way home for helping his wife at the end of the Ramadan fast.
He got a call of a woman giving birth. Within 30 seconds, he was in the gas station. He sees a Jewish rabbi yelling for help. He parks the ambu-cycle right next to this rabbi's car. He runs over and he sees a woman in labor, and he sees the baby is stuck. The baby's not coming out. He sees an umbilical cord around the neck and the baby's choking. He released the baby and saved a baby boy. The husband rabbi fainted.
Now Muhammed didn't even have time to put on gloves or take off his helmet. And he's giving oxygen to the baby. Another volunteer shows up taking care of the husband, the third one that shows up taking care of the wife. And it became a multi-casualty incident. The husband wakes up and says, what's with the baby is he alive or not?
The baby's fine mazel tov. The rabbi says, thank God. I want to meet the guy who saved my son's life. He runs over, he starts kissing and hugging him and says, you saved my baby. Thank you so much. If it wasn't for you, the baby would be dead. He says, next week we're going to have a Bris. I want you to be the godfather of the baby. So now Muhammed says, “we don't take any gifts. This is too much for me.”
If you really want to give me something, my wife was waiting for me at home. I promised to be home early, send her a note with a little bouquet of flowers, and I'll be happy. That's it.
This rabbi is serious. He says, no, I want to name my son after you, what's your name? Muhammed's like this guy doesn't know who I am. He didn't recognize he's an Arab. He says, listen, rabbi, please send my wife flowers. Forget about that name.
That Rabbi said, no, I insist. He says, I'm not sure your son's going to do too well in school with my name.
He says, why? He says, I'm not Jewish. I'm an Arab. My name is Mohammed.
The rabbi looks at him, his eyes like light up and he says, what's your address? I want to send you a huge bouquet of flowers.
Larry Bernstein:
I like to end each episode with a note of optimism. What are you optimistic about in Israel?
Eil Beer:
I am very optimistic. I think we're going to have a big change in the entire Middle East. I think Israel's going to have peace for many years to come. This was a very tough year or two for the entire country. For the Palestinians, it was very, very hard. But after we finished with the Iranian regime, I am sure the Hamas is going to surrender and give the hostages back.
Hopefully Hamas leaders are going to leave and they're going to have to rebuild Gaza. We're going to have peace with Syria, Lebanon, Qatar and Kuwait. And if they have a new regime in Iran, we're going to rebuild the relationship and the peace we had between Iran and Israel over 50 years ago.
War was the fault of Hamas. My son fought in this war. My son worked very, very hard not to injure anyone who's not a terrorist. I think Hamas are going to pay a very heavy price after Iran is done. And everyone could visit Israel for generations to come because of this war.
Larry Bernstein:
Thanks to Eli for joining us.
If you missed the last podcast, the topic was How Doctors Use AI with Patients. Our speaker was Dr. Ari Ciment who is the Fellowship Director of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach. Ari ran the COVID ward at Mt. Sinai during the pandemic and has appeared more on this podcast than any other guest.
Ari discussed how doctors are using AI in their medical practice with patients by using examples of high blood pressure and pulmonary distress.
I would like to make a plug for next week’s podcast with Richard Overy who is the leading air force historian of WW2. We are approaching the 80th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and I want to discuss the moral and military issues related to the bombing of Hiroshima and the firebombing of Tokyo.
You can find our previous episodes and transcripts on our website
whathappensnextin6minutes.com. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thank you for joining us today, goodbye.
Check out our previous episode, Using AI With Your Doctor, here.
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