Saving Lives: Israel’s MDA During Protective Edge
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עברית (Hebrew)
During Operation Protective Edge Israel’s MDA (Magen David Adom medical emergency service) treated 648 rocket-related injuries and 906 women who went into labor. 32 of them gave birth in the ambulance, on their way to the hospital.
As the operation came to an end MDA management published the organization’s monthly activity log, covering one of the busiest months in the MDA’s history:
- During the 29-day-long operation 1,800 MDA employees and 13,000 volunteers treated 648 rocket-related injuries, using 1,000 ambulances, emergency medical jeeps, 4×4 vehicles and MDA motorcycles.
- Of those injured, three were killed, five were seriously injured, two were moderately injured and ten were lightly injured by shrapnel.
- Treatments were given to 123 people who got injured while seeking shelter, and to 471 people suffering from anxiety.
- MDA blood services gathered 21,000 units of blood donated by Israelis all over the country, 23% of them donated by IDF soldiers.
- MDA blood services laboratories provided the IDF and hospitals with 38,420 units of blood and blood components.
- MDA teams distributed hundreds of first aid kits in shelters in Be’er Sheva, Dimona, Yeruham and other locations in southern and central Israel.
- MDA personnel deployed four mobile showers in the IDF’s staging areas.
- Over the past month MDA paramedics treated 906 women who went into labor; 32 of them gave birth in the ambulance, on the way to the hospital.
- During the operation, about two weeks ago, the MDA sent out more than 70 rescue vehicles to the Ben Gurion Airport for an emergency landing incident. The plane landed safely.
iHLS – Israel Homeland Security
MDA general manager Eli Been: “MDA forces played an important part in protecting Israeli citizens.”
Yesterday the President of the International Red Cross, Peter Maurer, visited the MDA station in Ashdod, accompanied by Justice Minister Tsippi Livni. Maurer spoke with Ofer Vaknin, the 12-year-old son of the MDA southern district director, who told him that he’s “scared to wake up at night and find a terrorist inside the house.”
