KK: What’s the mission of the organization?

MM: The mission is to provide immediate medical response within minutes. Their goal is less than 90 seconds. It’s an organization made up entirely of 5,000 volunteers who receive at least 200 hours of training in medical response; they’re either EMTs, paramedics, retired physicians, or even active physicians. They use LifeCompass, a GPS system kind of like Waze or Uber. They find the closest person to the scene. If you can respond, then you go. It’s totally nonprofit, funded by private charitable donations. One of their current goals is to make sure that every volunteer has a defibrillator.

I would say it’s just like any of our paramedics in the United States, except for the fact that instead of using ambulances to get to the scene, they are using ambucycles, which are motorcycles that have everything on them to save a life. They have all the basic supplies for an emergent situation. Imagine you’re in Israel, where it’s ancient, with narrow alleys, and densely populated. There’s lots of people. There are lots of cars. Ambulances can’t always get to patients within a short amount of time. Eli decided, “You know what? We have motorcycles that can maneuver through traffic and get there quicker.”

Fundraiser attendees (from left): United Hatzalah Deputy Director of International Operations Gavriel Friedson, emergency physician Dr. Randy Wallace, Dr. Michele Melamed, emergency medicine nurse Midge Lee, and emergency physician Dr. Elijah Robinson. PHOTOS: Anonymous

KK: What kind of impact has the program had?

MM: They’re serving the entire country of Israel. They’ve taken care of almost 4 million people since they’ve started the organization. They get about 250,000 calls a year. By the way, there’s no charge to patients. It’s pretty amazing.

KK: Tell us about the award that you received and what you were recognized for.

MM: I certainly wasn’t expecting anything. I said to Eli and his deputy director of international operations, Gavy Friedson, “I don’t know when you’re coming to Atlanta, but just let me know. I want to organize an event.” My goal was to bring maybe 50 people together.

I wanted to tell people how I got involved in the organization and what it meant to me. I really wanted to make it clear to people that, “I’m not asking you to come and give money. I want you to think about what this organization does and how you can be part of it.”