Lior Levi, an MDA paramedic from Jerusalem, is married and a father of four. He arrived that Saturday morning for a routine shift at the Gush Etzion MDA station, but when he arrived, the team he led was instructed to go down South to provide assistance. “We prepared ourselves, got the bulletproof vests and helmets ready, and drove south. On our way, we heard on the MDA internal radio system from other medical teams who were already there treating the victims. Every second, there was a new report of yet another seriously injured person who needed evacuation. We began to understand the enormity of the chaos and what we would be up against – something entirely different from anything we’d ever known.”
When the team arrived, they were called to treat three seriously wounded gunshot victims. “We began to provide lifesaving treatment, and we evacuated them to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon,” Lior says. “We finished up in the hospital, cleaned the blood from our ambulance, and were immediately sent to Zikim Junction to treat more people who were in serious condition.” Lior and his team arrived at an active battle zone amid unending rocket and Kalashnikov fire. “They were shooting at us; we heard an explosion on one side and, a moment later, an explosion on the other side. Our ambulance was damaged by the shrapnel. We saw some horrifying things – bodies flung by the wayside, things I’ll never forget for the rest of my life — a real battlefield. I was worried that I might die here. Between treatments, I called my wife and told her to kiss my kids for me and that I might not make it home.
“We made it to our patient at Zikim Junction: a severely wounded soldier whom we loaded into the ambulance. He had a bullet in his head, which had penetrated his helmet. As soon as we closed the doors, they began shooting at our ambulance. We wanted to get away from the area as fast as we could, but the soldier was seriously wounded, semi-conscious, and restless – we had to carry out some procedures to save his life; only then were we able to evacuate him to the hospital.” The team fought to save the young soldier’s life, even though his chances of surviving that type of injury were slim. “Since that Saturday, I thought about that soldier constantly; I didn’t know what happened to him. Then I received a phone call from his mother. She told me he was alive and conscious, talking and even eating. He still has a long road to recovery, but the knowledge that I did everything I could to save his life, and I was successful… There’s the Lior before October 7 and the Lior of afterwards. They are two different people entirely. What I saw and experienced there changed me and will stay with me forever.”
