From brutality and chaos, to saving lives
“The brutality involved, I’ve never seen before,” Dr Tzvi Perry tells The AJN.
The first injured person Soroka Hospital received on October 7 was a 22-year-old heavily pregnant Muslim Bedouin woman.
“The brutality involved, I’ve never seen before,” Dr Tzvi Perry tells The AJN.
“She had gone with her husband to buy something in Ofakim and on the way terrorists caught them. They shot the husband, saw she was pregnant and shot her mid-abdomen. It’s not that they wanted to kill her, they wanted to kill her and the baby and make sure that she would suffer.
“We took her into the operating theatre and we were lucky enough to have two obstetrics and gynaecology specialists, who took the baby out. Unfortunately, the baby died two days after, but the mother survived.”
Perry, a head surgeon at Soroka Hospital, spent all day in the operating theatre. Outside in the emergency room, it was chaos.
Soroka is located just 40km from the Gaza Strip, and on October 7, terrorist activity took place as close as 10km from the hospital. Between 7.30am and midnight that Saturday, Soroka received 673 wounded individuals brought in by ambulance, helicopter and private car.
“We were swamped,” Perry recalls.
“For me that day, from 6.30am until 10pm, I didn’t even know what was happening. I was in the operating theatre the whole day, but when I went to the trauma bay, I saw things I never envisioned. In the hour between 12-1pm, 83 patients came to our trauma bay. Out of the nearly 700 people who were brought in, 580 were badly injured and 328 required large surgical procedures.
“One of the worst things I saw in all my career was a 12-year-old Bedouin boy who was working with his dad near Sderot. The dad was shot instantly and the boy was shot mid-abdomen. These are highly trained terrorists, they know what they’re doing. When you shoot someone in the head you expect them to die, when you shoot them in the chest, most likely they will die. When you shoot someone in the abdomen, it means you want them to die in agony after hours of suffering.
“This boy showed them he was a Muslim, still they still shot him and left him to die.”
But he survived and Perry says there are a number of reasons why the medical staff were able to do miraculous things that awful day.
“The mortality rate at large for people who arrived alive was around six per cent,” Perry says.
“That means almost 95 per cent of people, even though the challenges were immense, survived.
“How? With proper skills, a proper team and proper training. Many staff were not treating perfect strangers, they were treating their own community, which had added incentive. We became the dream team and we were able to do things never envisioned before.”
Since October 7, the number of casualties treated at Soroka continues to rise – most of them IDF soldiers wounded while fighting in Gaza. Those injured during the heroic rescue mission of hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were brought to the hospital, while a number of released and rescued hostages have undergone rehabilitation there.
But Perry says some difficult ethical decisions have been required.
“We had a ‘small’ mass casualty event soon after October 7 – terms have different definitions after October 7,” Perry says.
“There were only eight casualties brought to our trauma bay and seven of them were IDF soldiers. The eighth one was different, we knew he was a Nukhba terrorist.”
An emergency room thoracotomy was performed – a surgical procedure where a cut is made between the ribs to see the lungs or other organs in the chest or thorax – and the terrorist was revived, meaning an operating theatre was needed.
“The head nurse, who lost her niece at the Nova festival, told me she would not allow the terrorist into her operating theatre,” Perry says.
“I told her it’s not simply a moral issue, it’s also about training because the next time it won’t be a terrorist, it will be an IDF soldier and the whole team needs to train. The nurse told me that wasn’t a good enough reason, so as a last resort I said every terrorist might have a bit of information that might be crucial – he might know where a hostage or a body is.
“That worked. Even though she was resentful, she came with me and we were able to save that terrorist’s life. After three days he was stable enough to be interrogated. It turned out that terrorist was one of Yahya Sinwar’s own physicians and had lots of information.”
The challenges Israel has had to contend with on the medical front since October 7 are immense. Perry says at least a quarter of his personnel at any given time are on reserve duty, while every day injured IDF soldiers are brought to the hospital. But, with a year of trauma treatment behind them, the medical staff have continuously found ways to mitigate the challenges and save more lives.
“Lots of things we have learned we are now able to convey later on,” Perry says.
“Most of the soldiers are not going to die – they survive and go to rehab. We had one small rehab ward, but due to the war we’ve opened another one and the old one is now twice as big.”
How injured soldiers are brought to the hospital has also changed.
“The newer way is ‘scoop and run’. If he is still breathing, scoop him and bring him to us,” Perry says.
“Whatever injuries he or she has, we will manage them. That’s one very important thing we learned. If someone is afflicted by trauma, the number one killer is bleeding. What are you going to do to contradict it? Stop the bleeding. The ‘Stop the Bleed ‘course is mandatory for everyone who works in the hospital, even the cleaners.”
During Perry’s visit to Australia, organised by JNF NSW, he told audiences about the cultural melting pot that is the staff of Soroka Hospital. He told a moving story of one wounded soldier who insisted on having his beloved military dog treated before him or else he refused to be treated, so the hospital obliged.
Perry also paid tribute to JNF Australia for recently installing an all-weather piano at the hospital. The piano has proven to be incredibly healing and therapeutic as it allows patients and medThe first injured person Soroka Hospital received on October 7 was a 22-year-old heavily pregnant Muslim Bedouin woman.
“The brutality involved, I’ve never seen before,” Dr Tzvi Perry tells The AJN.
“She had gone with her husband to buy something in Ofakim and on the way terrorists caught them. They shot the husband, saw she was pregnant and shot her mid-abdomen. It’s not that they wanted to kill her, they wanted to kill her and the baby and make sure that she would suffer.
“We took her into the operating theatre and we were lucky enough to have two obstetrics and gynaecology specialists, who took the baby out. Unfortunately, the baby died two days after, but the mother survived.”
Perry, a head surgeon at Soroka Hospital, spent all day in the operating theatre. Outside in the emergency room, it was chaos.
Soroka is located just 40km from the Gaza Strip, and on October 7, terrorist activity took place as close as 10km from the hospital. Between 7.30am and midnight that Saturday, Soroka received 673 wounded individuals brought in by ambulance, helicopter and private car.
“We were swamped,” Perry recalls.
“For me that day, from 6.30am until 10pm, I didn’t even know what was happening. I was in the operating theatre the whole day, but when I went to the trauma bay, I saw things I never envisioned. In the hour between 12-1pm, 83 patients came to our trauma bay. Out of the nearly 700 people who were brought in, 580 were badly injured and 328 required large surgical procedures.
“One of the worst things I saw in all my career was a 12-year-old Bedouin boy who was working with his dad near Sderot. The dad was shot instantly and the boy was shot mid-abdomen. These are highly trained terrorists, they know what they’re doing. When you shoot someone in the head you expect them to die, when you shoot them in the chest, most likely they will die. When you shoot someone in the abdomen, it means you want them to die in agony after hours of suffering.
“This boy showed them he was a Muslim, still they still shot him and left him to die.”
But he survived and Perry says there are a number of reasons why the medical staff were able to do miraculous things that awful day.
“The mortality rate at large for people who arrived alive was around six per cent,” Perry says.
“That means almost 95 per cent of people, even though the challenges were immense, survived.
“How? With proper skills, a proper team and proper training. Many staff were not treating perfect strangers, they were treating their own community, which had added incentive. We became the dream team and we were able to do things never envisioned before.”
Since October 7, the number of casualties treated at Soroka continues to rise – most of them IDF soldiers wounded while fighting in Gaza. Those injured during the heroic rescue mission of hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were brought to the hospital, while a number of released and rescued hostages have undergone rehabilitation there.
But Perry says some difficult ethical decisions have been required.
“We had a ‘small’ mass casualty event soon after October 7 – terms have different definitions after October 7,” Perry says.
“There were only eight casualties brought to our trauma bay and seven of them were IDF soldiers. The eighth one was different, we knew he was a Nukhba terrorist.”
An emergency room thoracotomy was performed – a surgical procedure where a cut is made between the ribs to see the lungs or other organs in the chest or thorax – and the terrorist was revived, meaning an operating theatre was needed.
“The head nurse, who lost her niece at the Nova festival, told me she would not allow the terrorist into her operating theatre,” Perry says.
“I told her it’s not simply a moral issue, it’s also about training because the next time it won’t be a terrorist, it will be an IDF soldier and the whole team needs to train. The nurse told me that wasn’t a good enough reason, so as a last resort I said every terrorist might have a bit of information that might be crucial – he might know where a hostage or a body is.
“That worked. Even though she was resentful, she came with me and we were able to save that terrorist’s life. After three days he was stable enough to be interrogated. It turned out that terrorist was one of Yahya Sinwar’s own physicians and had lots of information.”
The challenges Israel has had to contend with on the medical front since October 7 are immense. Perry says at least a quarter of his personnel at any given time are on reserve duty, while every day injured IDF soldiers are brought to the hospital. But, with a year of trauma treatment behind them, the medical staff have continuously found ways to mitigate the challenges and save more lives.
“Lots of things we have learned we are now able to convey later on,” Perry says.
“Most of the soldiers are not going to die – they survive and go to rehab. We had one small rehab ward, but due to the war we’ve opened another one and the old one is now twice as big.”
How injured soldiers are brought to the hospital has also changed.
“The newer way is ‘scoop and run’. If he is still breathing, scoop him and bring him to us,” Perry says.
“Whatever injuries he or she has, we will manage them. That’s one very important thing we learned. If someone is afflicted by trauma, the number one killer is bleeding. What are you going to do to contradict it? Stop the bleeding. The ‘Stop the Bleed ‘course is mandatory for everyone who works in the hospital, even the cleaners.”
During Perry’s visit to Australia, organised by JNF NSW, he told audiences about the cultural melting pot that is the staff of Soroka Hospital. He told a moving story of one wounded soldier who insisted on having his beloved military dog treated before him or else he refused to be treated, so the hospital obliged.
Perry also paid tribute to JNF Australia for recently installing an all-weather piano at the hospital. The piano has proven to be incredibly healing and therapeutic as it allows patients and medical staff a chance to play and escape.
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