IDF paratrooper wounded in August terrorist attack wakes up
St.-Sgt. Yuval Appel recently opened his eyes, according to the IDF’s Bamahane weekly magazine.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
An IDF paratrooper who sustained critical injuries when run down by a Palestinian terrorist on Route 60 in August has regained consciousness, and is set to begin a lengthy rehabilitation program.St.-Sgt. Yuval Appel recently opened his eyes, according to the IDF’s Bamahane weekly magazine.The IDF Spokesman added that doctors at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, where Appel is hospitalized, listed him as being in satisfactory condition since September 2, following his gradual improvement.Appel was placed on a ventilator and kept sedated for over a month following the terrorist attack near the Shiloh junction. A Palestinian driver rammed his vehicle into several soldiers, before being shot and seriously wounded.St.-Sgt. Yarin Ashkenazi, a fellow paratrooper, was also critically wounded in the attack. Doctors sedated him and placed him on a ventilator following the attack, but his condition improved and he regained consciousness within a few days.Lt. Daniel Albaz, who was lightly wounded in the attack, shot and seriously wounded the Palestinian driver.The soldiers were part of a unit that had been stationed in the area to deal with flare-ups in the aftermath of the deadly arson attack on a Palestinian home in the village of Duma, where a Palestinian toddler and both his parents were murdered by masked terrorists who hurled firebombs into their home.The defense establishment said Jewish extremists were behind the firebombing.