Moshe Samira was praying at his local synagogue in Holon recently when he felt the vibration of the emergency application on his United Hatzalah communication device. Quickly lifting the device to his ear, he heard the muted call from the dispatcher announcing that there had been a stabbing on Hama’apilim Street. Moshe silently slipped outside to where his ambucycle was parked. He got onboard the vehicle, revved the engine, and set off towards the nearby address.

Arriving in less than two minutes, Moshe found a 20-year-old man who had sustained a deep stab wound to his left leg and a second laceration to his lower back. The young man was rapidly losing blood and his skin was turning clammy and pale. A United Hatzalah volunteer who works in an adjacent shop had been the first responder on scene and Moshe joined him in treating the victim together. With a third volunteer who arrived shortly after Moshe, the trio of United Hatzalah volunteers applied direct pressure to the thigh wound with a sterile dressing and successfully stemmed the bleeding. They then applied a bandage to secure the dressing in place. Moshe continued to monitor the patient’s condition and vital signs until the arrival of the mobile intensive care ambulance six minutes later. The United Hatzalah volunteer updated the onboard paramedic with regard to the treatment that had already been administered and proceeded to assist the crew in loading the victim onto the ambulance for transport to the nearby Wolfson Medical Center.

As the sirens faded into the distance, Moshe gathered his gear back into his medical bag and returned on his ambucycle to the synagogue. With the sun setting over the Mediterranean Sea, he realized that he had missed evening prayers. Despite that, Moshe was filled with satisfaction from having administered critical medical treatment to a person in his time of need.

“I hate when I miss important things,” Moshe recounted about the story, “and Tefillah is definitely one of them. But I recognize the importance of helping people when they need it and I know that outweighs everything else, even Tefillah. I am proud to be a first responder and help others whenever they need and whenever I can.”