Jay Ruderman:

Welcome back to all about change. This is a special episode in Wake of the recent tragedy in Israel. We want to turn our focus to those working hard day in and out to save lives. We’ve taken pains turn this episode around more quickly than usual because of how fast things are developing on the ground. I spoke to Linor Attias, a first responder on the ground in the south of Israel. She was one of the first on the scene after the Hamas attacks on October 7th. She spoke to me via phone from inside a triage tent. You’ll be able to hear that in her background. I’m so grateful for her taking the time to speak with me and tell me about the situation on the ground. A heads up to our listeners, you’ll hear some graphic descriptions of the aftermath of the attack. If you’re listening with children nearby, you might want to use headphones. I want to tell you that I join you in all the pain that’s been inflicted on the Jewish people in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. I’m sure you know people that have died in this attack, as do I. My wife and child are currently in Israel, so thank you for giving us the time. I see that you’re on the front lines. I know you’re going through a very difficult time, so thank you for your time right now.

Linor Attias:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Jay Ruderman:

Linor is a member of the volunteer first responder organization, United Hatzalah. The organization’s day-to-day is changed over the last week, but it was founded to ensure rapid medical care to anyone in Israel,

Linor Attias:

United Hatzalah established to save lives. Our goal target is to be there to be every call within 90 seconds or less. For now, we are three all over the country and the major cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We’ll be there in 90 seconds or less only because we have enough volunteers. Whenever we don’t have enough volunteers, we just open more training. Course it doesn’t need to anything. Just need be able to speak two times a week during the evening to learn everything and that’s it. We’ll receive the medic bag, we’ll receive all the training all over the years, and of course the communication device, the communication device will the nearest one. We don’t have time when baby is choking 90 seconds. This is what we have. There are volunteers all over the country, also Orthodox Arab movement, Christian bedroom, women, everyone is part of the 7,000 volunteers of United.

Jay Ruderman:

I asked Linor about what inspired her to become a medic in the first place. Her answer had some familiar ties to what we’re talking about.

Linor Attias:

I lost my Uncle Emile in Jerusalem and if only back then he had first responders, maybe he wouldn’t. So many blood with a tour on probably could be saved. And at that moment that I didn’t know how I can help and assist my parents and a male doctor, I decided that I’m going to dedicate my life to save others. And then I heard about United Organization of Volunteers Medic. Everyone can become a medic and no matter what you’re doing, what your professional job skills, they’ll teach you everything. They give you the equipment, the communication devices, and if something happens and you are the nearest volunteer, you’ll be alert and that’s it. It’s done. You can save someone life because you have the equipment in your car or your end cycle. So I decided that I’m going to save life. That’s it.

Jay Ruderman:

She told me that as part of the training, volunteers go through something called MCI drills or mass casualty injury drills.

Linor Attias:

We have the drills MCI drills every branch in Israel receiving a bunch of M drills during the year. It could be or weapons earthquake. We are preparing the volunteers for any kind of emergency care scenarios. They know the logistic protocols, they know the medical protocols, they know the operational protocols.

Jay Ruderman:

But no training was sufficient for what volunteer medics would encounter throughout the day of October 7th,

Linor Attias:

I live in Jerusalem, 6 30, 6 40 am We had the first rocket and I was saying to myself, they got to say again, it’s mistake. It wasn’t mean to. It was mistake and that’s it. But then another and another, so going on. So I just ran over to our center in Jerusalem, volunteers around seven 30. We received phone calls shooting us, please, please help. Please rescue us. And it was devastating to hear those voices screaming and yelling for help and to hear the, it wasn’t like regular gun, it was rifles. This is, I heard, this is what I heard. And when I finished to establish all the distance center, I just went down to the south, all the courses that went down to the south. And I assist in help to open the medical field to make the first triage so we can demand if someone, the helicopter or just ambulance to take them to the hospital. It was a chaos. It was a chaos

Jay Ruderman:

For Linor. That chaos brought to mind why she joined United Hat in the first place.

Linor Attias:

Why I become a volunteer of the United because no one put tourniquet on my and lost so many, I cannot count the number of the tourniquet I put on soldiers and civilian who got started during this Shabbat and I know I stayed. Right.

Jay Ruderman:

So after checking with her Jerusalem dispatch office, Leno sped south with the siren on full blast. Within an hour she was onsite in an ambulance. The work couldn’t start yet though the United Hatzalah volunteers had to coordinate with the Israel Defense Force or I D F to figure out what was the safest way for volunteers to get to the victims.

Linor Attias:

For us to make the connection with the I D F to understand because safety, if we going to fill ourselves, no one will take the others. So let’s start protecting ourselves so we can be able to take someone else. So it took us 30 minutes to manage this assessment and then we start to get in and get out. We saw the bodies on the main road. I just drove big in between bodies, which I understood. They already did.

Jay Ruderman:

So can you tell us a little bit, I know it’s very emotional, but can you tell us what it was like to essentially show up in a war zone? What did you see? Can you describe for our listeners who don’t have a firsthand account of what you saw on the way down south?

Linor Attias:

I don’t have the right term, but warzone is not the right term for death. Warz zone is when military fighting against another military. It was town and cities with civilians, and they were in between missile terrorists and soldiers who also make, it wasn’t zone I how to very best decisions and the right decisions. I cannot think for my heart and I have a big huge arm. I needed to focus on all different aspects, information gathering to understand which information is true, which is just only like a guess or mistake. And to create the right operational picture. So we’ll know how to act and how to move the rescue inside and get them out. So we can take, sometimes we put seven or nine people on the ambulance, you couldn’t treat them, you just put them inside and escape outside and then you start to treat them.

And one emotional thing that happened to me in one town, it was in the village of Berry Kibbutz, we went down to take some injured civilian that was on the main road and it was near some houses and I heard a baby crying, but it was very low. I didn’t even understood if it’s baby or maybe it’s a kitty cat. I didn’t know what I’m hearing, but someone in my gut, in my heart tell me I need to check it out. So I went inside the house and I saw two beautiful twins, 10 months old, and their parents were murdered. They were over the babies. They protect the baby. The mother was one baby, the father was with the other. And this is how they say as a mother, I thought, I cannot just take them to the ambulance. What should I do with them on the triage on our hospital scene, I need formula babies, I need diapers.

I need to bring something with me because I don’t hold it in the ambulances. So I went to the kitchen and I saw the refrigerator, the magnets with the pictures of this beautiful family. And I start to think where the mar will put the baby formula. And I remember I said to myself, instead of her sending in her kitchen, referring the bottle for her babies, now no one going do it. Someone will do it eventually. This is what I told myself and another medic. I asked him to find the diapers and he did in the baby’s room. And then they just took them to the hospital, the hospital, the social workers of the hospital, them. And I don’t know what happened. What will be the next step for them. Another thing that was very hard for me is when I need to turn out the uniform for the soldiers, because we need to take over the clothes to see where the bleeding is so we can stop it. And just to turn over an I D F uniform for a soldier fighter, it’s a very hard moment for me as a soldier sense, this is crucial. This is not the right way to fight. This is not a, I don’t have even, don’t even have the word

Jay Ruderman:

For Linor. The horror was unimaginable. Something she’d only seen on a computer screen.

Linor Attias:

I think they took the video games and make them alive. I know that the reality I witnessed is something that obviously I’ll need to take care of myself with thema unit of United Atella and all the volunteers will take care by them. But to see so many blood, to see so many hundreds at the beginning, it was hundreds. Right at the beginning, hundreds of people that I saw that I count one road, I count 35, another road, I count 11, another house, another field. I count 25. It was hundred immediately. And the fairness to understand that there are still between us, that they’re hiding maybe in the cars on the road, maybe I have no way.

Jay Ruderman:

In the middle of all the devastation surrounded by tragedy, Linor kept going. She kept going. She told me because of the hope of saving, just one more

Linor Attias:

Hope. This is what hold me up over there. Just the hope that maybe I can save someone. Those who I couldn’t save, I couldn’t do nothing for them. And just I was hoping that maybe someone survived this barbarism, this brutal terror attack and maybe someone can be safe. Then when we found someone, it gave us the adrenaline and the power to go forward, to see more and more bodies, to smell the blood, to see the dogs hiding terrifying, to see everything that we saw. But looking for someone who still alive under the understanding that I can be shot immediately, that I can live my life here. But the adrenaline, the feeling that we received in every person we grab out from this battlefield, brutal battlefield, gave us the power to continue to continue. This Saturday, October 7th, we’ll never forget, we’ll never forget October 7th. And as you said, everyone to learn from this day, everyone to learn how they can protect their civilians because the civilians of the south of the Godde wasn’t protected. And I know that we is the right decision. This is our own life at risk. But still it was the right decision to serve so many people. So we established immediately the decision, the right decision, that every ambulance should have at least one volunteer with his gun and this is how we could make it. We didn’t know how many ISTs seen alive shooting the people. We didn’t know that. But when the army understood the situation, then they started to protect us. We worked shoulder by shoulder with the army.

Jay Ruderman:

But as time went on, more and more volunteers arrived as well. By 2:00 PM Linor told me there were 50 ambulances, three helicopters and 250 volunteers by 4:00 PM 150 more volunteers had arrived. But remember in the days to follow, United Hatzalah is still responsible for responding to emergencies nationwide.

Linor Attias:

So the mission wasn’t changed since last Saturday. What happened is that we brought more volunteers from all over Israel to assist in the south, but we still need to manage all Israel across. We have had accident, we have talking all over Israel every day, every day we receive 2000 calls, emergency call, 2000 calls. We grant for ambulances receiving every day, and now we need to do more service for the south. So we just bring the vehicle of the command center, the mobile district center, which establish a unique way to the situation in the south and in Jerusalem. They manage all over the country.

Jay Ruderman:

Well, God willing, there will be peace soon and this will come to an end. You talked about P T S D. How are your volunteers going to deal with what they’ve seen?

Linor Attias:

Thank you for asking about us. We have the cycle trauma unit. The cycle trauma unit. Open the hotline for the volunteers immediately when Shabbat went through during the night and think, then they are around the clock every shift that are opening, they have the circle that explain the operational side, but someone from the psycho trauma unit explain them what different things they’re going to see. Maybe they’ll see their bodies, maybe they’ll see attacks, maybe they’ll see a soldier. Soldier that just soldier physically is okay but mentally collapsed. And they preparing us for all different things that we might do and feel. And after the shift, they have the circles over here that someone that they can just speak. We can say whatever we want to say, we can. They bring the piano already during the night and of course the hotline still active. If you need a private call with someone, the unit is active 24 7. And if you need face to face, they’ll meet you wherever your home is, they will come to your home or a coffee shop or whatever. They’ll sit with you. And it’s very important for us to evangelize everything, to understand what we’ve been seeing and feeling and to bring their volunteers back normal to their own life, to the family, community, jobs. We need to bring them safe not only in their bodies, but also in their mining world.

Jay Ruderman:

Unfortunately, psychological safety isn’t the volunteer’s only concern.

Linor Attias:

We have already five volunteers who murdered in this director. Two of them was at the festival. One of them was in trying to assist the police station and we got shot at. We have wounded volunteers and we have meetings volunteers who maybe right now they’re sector in data, but we don’t have the information yet.

Jay Ruderman:

I’m so sorry for that. Well first of all, thank you so much for your service and for everyone else who is volunteering for United. Can you tell us how our listeners can get involved, how they can help, how they can support you and your colleagues who are out there on the front lines trying to save civilians and individuals who’ve been maimed and seriously hurt from terrorist attacks?

Linor Attias:

There are mainly two ways to support us right now, which are crucial for us. One is to donate whatever you can donate at United Atala website campaign. Please do, please help us because we need more, more and crucial for us to have more and helmet because right now we don’t have enough. And if someone will start at the north, we’re talking about the long run, then we need more and we already have the supplier that we can purchase. The second thing can help us just to be the ambassador, to tell the story of United about those responders who know how to save someone life so many during this week and just to support us, to tell about us to others. This is the two ways that I think we can help United Alah right now.

Jay Ruderman:

My heart goes out to you that you’re still there, that the volunteers of United Alah is still there helping people and knowing that your work will continue in the coming days and weeks. And all I can say is God bless you and thank you. And I urge all our listeners, anyone that wants to help people in Israel that have been the victims of the worst terrorist attacks since the Holocaust, to reach out to the of United Sah and give what you can to help this amazing organization. Leno, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you taking the time out of an emergency situation to talk to us and to let our listeners know what’s happening on the ground. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Linor Attias:

Thank you so much.

Jay Ruderman:

I wish you all the best going forward. Thank you so much.

Linor Attias:

Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye Bye.

Jay Ruderman:

Thank you for joining us again on all about change for this difficult episode. We’ll be back on our regular schedule with our next episode.