A woman's life was saved on the first night of Rosh Hashanah after she suffered a severe allergic reaction - which turned into an anaphylactic shock - to honey and pomegranates.
The Jewish woman was celebrating the New Year in Jerusalem when she suddenly found she couldn't breathe during the meal.
Rosh Hashanah dinner features several customary foods that symbolize blessings for the new year.
The pomegranate represents all the mitzvot (divine commandments) we may achieve - plentiful as the pomegranate seeds - and an apple dipped in honey is to bless us for a sweet year.
These delicacies proved nearly fatal to the 40-year-old resident of Jerusalem, whose family immediately noticed her distress and called for help.
United Hatzalah volunteers living nearby abandoned their own holiday dinner tables at once and rushed to her aid, finding the woman outside of her home and in serious respiratory distress.
Pnina Hadas and Shimon Arama, the paramedics who arrived at the scene, immediately injected the patient with an EpiPen carrying epinephrine, the life-saving treatment in case of an allergic reaction.
"It was incredible. The woman went from not being able to breathe one minute to being able to take in a breath," said Pnina.
Such allergic reactions occur when the body recognizes a food or particle as harmful and releases a large amount of proteins called cytokines into the bloodstream, along with antibodies that target the offending particle and initiate a multi-organ reaction.
One of the immediate outcomes is a rush of blood through dilating blood vessels that causes swelling. This leads to angioedema - a red, angry swelling of the face, tongue, eyelids or extremities - and problems breathing.
The severe reaction happens when a person is exposed to the particle for a second time in their life, after their body had wrongly "marked" it as dangerous during the first exposure.
With the administration of epinephrine, the woman was stable within a few minutes, and was in a much better condition by the time the ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital for further care.
"All because of the epinephrine," said Pnina. "To save a life right at the beginning of the new year is something that is simply incredible."