The story of the Magen David Adom Sderot station on Black Saturday is a story of teamwork, great resourcefulness, and self-sacrifice. 06:30 AM is the time when the Magen David Adom night shift is nearing its end, and the morning shift is about to begin. One of the intensive care ambulances in Sderot was staffed by paramedic Natanel Dahbash, and David Azriel (Dado), one of the veteran drivers at the Magen David Adom Sderot station. During the night, the team handled a case and returned to the station around 06:00 AM. There was complete silence, a morning breeze.
They began to plan the upcoming day and time with family for Simchat Torah.
Suddenly, sirens tore through the silence. Even for the Magen David Adom personnel in Sderot, who were accustomed to alarms, this was highly unusual – the lack of warnings, the early hour, and the relentless intensity of the barrages. After about fifteen minutes, they emerged from the safe room and heard gunfire, “We didn’t know exactly what it was, but we understood that something very unusual was happening.”
Dahbash and Dado’s team – along with other night crews and additional teams who arrived to staff the morning shift – quickly realized they were operating in a battlefield. Everything happened fast. A vehicle arrived rapidly at the station, brakes screeching, shouts: “There are terrorists in Sderot!” Groans of pain from the wounded and cries for help. Everything became intertwined in the memories of the team members. Inside the vehicle was a severely wounded person, hit by gunfire in all parts of their body – chest, abdomen, limbs – the Magen David Adom Sderot staff understood that there was also shooting within the city, not just “Code Red.”
They pulled the injured person from the vehicle, closed the station’s entrance gate, and began to provide treatment. Sderot residents who had been shot arrived at the place that symbolized healing and relief for them – the Magen David Adom station. After the first casualty, more and more injured people continued to arrive, vehicle after vehicle, all with significant injuries.
At this point, paramedic Amit Hanania arrived at the station. He had left his home in Ashkelon and miraculously escaped an encounter with the terrorists, as did paramedic Giorgi Guliak. They were joined by paramedics Ariel Elbaz and Hillel Kholodenko, and EMTs Odelia Swisa, Yaniv Tayar and Meir. They understood that this time the situation was different and opened a treatment site inside the station: in the kitchen, an area for treating walking wounded,
and in the safe room, an area for treating bedridden casualties. They stopped bleeding, bandaged wounds, administered fluids and plasma, but realized that their patients needed to reach a hospital for their lives to be saved. At the same time, they saw the terrorists’ pickup truck passing through the streets and began to strategize.
