An Oct 7 reunion
A month after the events of the “Black Saturday”, Magen David Adom paramedics Gali and Yarin reunited with six-year-old Ofek, whom they rescued.
Gali, Ofek and Yarin
For the meeting, they brought a gift to Ofek – a unicorn doll on which was written “To Ofek the heroine, with great love, Gali and Yarin from MDA”
Yarin Shetrit, MDA Paramedic at the Jerusalem station, treated 6-year-old Ofek from Holit on Black Saturday and he recounts the events of that day:
“That Saturday, I was on night shift, at 06:30 a.m., we heard the Red Alert sirens and started receiving the reports of the terrorist infiltration.
We realised that there was some unusual event and we went down to the southern region as part of a reinforcement team with a mobile intensive care unit (MICU). We were in the Ofakim area and treated quite a few casualties. At a certain point, we were called to a border crossing that is right next to the Gaza border, we were there alone for the first few minutes, and after a few minutes a military vehicle arrived with soldiers. The back door opened, and we saw Ofek, a 6-year-old girl, with a gunshot wound in her leg and a tourniquet. The time when they placed the tourniquet on her was written on her forehead and we understood that every minute was critical to prevent an even more serious injury.
Ofek had lost quite a bit of blood, but she was very calm, not crying at all. We transferred her to the intensive care unit and began to give her medical treatment. At the same time, the soldiers who were there said that her parents were also injured by gunfire, but they did not know their condition. We realised that more injured people were expected to arrive at the junction, and we sent a report to the MDA dispatch centre in order to send more helicopters and intensive care vehicles to us.
We started preparing to evacuate her to the hospital when at the same time we received a report of a helicopter landing nearby, we quickly drove to join them when in the meantime another IDF medical team arrived to evacuate the girl’s grandmother, who was in serious condition. After two weeks of uncertainty, we were able to contact the family, we realized that they were shot in the house with a, grenade launcher and we were happy to hear that everyone was saved.”
Gali, the EMT who saved Ofek tells during the meeting: “This whole black Sabbath was very black indeed, but what stuck with me was the evacuation of Ofek – something about her calmness, a little girl who was injured and was so calm, it’s not something trivial. Meeting her here today, walking on two legs and smiling, is very exciting.”
