MDA worker tours Australia for Lehavim project

A Magen David Adom paramedic who treated victims during the October 7 attacks is in Australia to help raise funds for a new ambulance station near the Gaza border.

Yarin Shitrit, lead instructor of the Jerusalem paramedic course for women’s national service, spent two days in southern Israel in the wake of the 2023 atrocities, treating casualties while under constant rocket fire and terrorist threats.

Speaking ahead of the Melbourne MDA fundraising event on Thursday night, Shitrit described treating a six-year-old girl who was shot in her family’s safe room who arrived at his position with tourniquets applied to her legs.

“On her forehead was written the time of the tourniquet with black marker, and usually you see it on soldiers in battle, not on a six-year-old girl,” he said.

“She was calm. She was alone, she was not crying.”

The child’s grandmother arrived minutes later, also severely wounded.

Both survived, with Shitrit later receiving footage of the girl’s recovery and eventually meeting her.

“After two months, I got a video of her running. It was crazy,” he said.

Shitrit was completing a night shift in Jerusalem when the attacks began and deployed south at 10am  with a mobile intensive care unit.

“I was there for two days until the eighth of October in the evening, and during those two days, we went from place to place near the border and treated and evacuated people to the hospital,” he said.

He described working under dangerous conditions with “rockets over our head all the time” and radio warnings about approaching terrorists while treating people from the Nova festival and clashes around Ofakim.

“Like me, there were hundreds of Magen David Adom people, volunteers, employees, EMTs, paramedics, that went south that day with one shared goal they all wanted to help and save life,” he said.

The Australian MDA events aim to fund a new MDA station in Lehavim, addressing a critical coverage gap where the nearest ambulance currently travels from Beersheba.

“It’s a critical place to open a Magen David Adom station,” Shitrit explained.

MDA has identified key priorities following October 7, including opening more stations in peripheral regions, particularly near the Gaza border and in the north.

The organisation is implementing a major modernisation programme, tripling annual paramedic training to shift advanced life support coverage from 30 per cent to 70 per cent.

MDA is also purchasing bulletproof ambulances after learning that “most of the ambulances that went south that day was just regular ambulances, and unfortunately, some of Magen David Adom people died when they’ve been shot in an ambulance,” Shitrit said.

Other initiatives include the Magen project, training community-based security teams in peripheral areas for first response during mass casualty events and establishing a new underground blood bank