World
Serious As
A Heart Attack
'Miracle' in
Israel aided
by ambulance
donated by
Detroiters.
The dreidel menorah has
special meaning to Sheri
and David Whiteman
because of the mes-
sage conveyed by Israeli
dreidels: "A great mira -
cle happened here."
Michael Jacobs
Special to the Jewish News
I
t's not unusual for a trip to
Israel to be a life-changing
experience. But an Atlanta
man's life-or-death drama
in Israel made an impact on
Detroit's attitude toward Israeli
emergency services.
David Whiteman, 44, a plastic
surgeon andnative of Windsor,
Ontario, was on a three-family,
two-week trip to Israel in June.
It was the first time he and wife
Sheri, a non-practicing lawyer
originally from West Bloomfield,
had been to Israel since they met
on a BBYO trip in 1979. They
marked their 19th wedding anni-
versary June 14 in Petra, Jordan,
with their children, Ari and
Rachel, and nine friends.
"Everything was fine. We were
having a great trip," David said.
"Petra was remarkable, but it
was very hot and very physical,"
Sheri said.
On June 15, they headed
north to a Bedouin camp west of
Masada, where they took sunset
camel rides in the desert. David
wasn't feeling right and thought
he was allergic to the camel.
At the end of the ride, "the
shortness of breath over a mat-
ter of two or three minutes really
turned into a crushing kind of
pressure in my chest," he said.
A heart attack seemed unlikely.
"He had no risk factors, no
warnings, no nothing. He was
fine',' Sheri said. But "Israel, as
you know, is very hot. It's a very
physical trip."
It's also a trip that involves
many remote locations in the
south. The Negev accounts for 60
percent of Israel's land but has
only 6 percent of its population.
The nearest town, Arad, was
about 30 minutes away along
winding mountain roads; but
tour guide Ossi Kaufman made
the trip in less than 20 minutes.
Arad is a town of only 26,000
people and has no hospital. But,
luckily for David Whiteman,
it has a Magen David Adorn
(MDA) emergency medical sta-
tion, including a top-level mobile
intensive care unit. MDA is the
Israeli emergency medical and
rescue organization, admitted as
an affiliate of the International
Red Cross in late June. It spent
July and August responding to
emergencies related to the war in
Lebanon.
Life-Saving Action
Once the paramedics learned
David thought he was having a
heart attack, "they were unbeliev-
able," David said. "Being a doctor,
you kind of get an idea working
with paramedics and nurses.
These guys were so skilled and
so slick."
The paramedics confirmed a
heart attack. They hooked David
up to a full 12-beat cardiogram,
rather than the lower-grade
monitor typical in the field in
America. He then then received
Plavix, heparin, morphine and
nitroglycerin — "all the appropri-
ate things" — for the 26-mile ride
to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva.
He started praying on the way,
then wondered whether it was
appropriate after he hadn't prayed
that morning or the day before.
"Yes, I'm Jewish; and here I am
in Israel, and I'm hoping that my
prayers maybe have a more direct
route. But at that point I stopped
and said, `Right now I've just got
to focus on staying calm because
I couldn't stop shaking," David
said. "I had this image in my head
of my family going home without
me ... I said I can't go there; I'm
not going to go there'
Within two hours of the
onset of chest pains, he reached
the hospital and was wheeled
straight from the ambulance
to the cardiac catheterization
lab. There was no stop in the
emergency room and no delay
to fill out insurance forms. Two
cardiologists were waiting for
David, who put his mark on a
Hebrew consent form and told
the doctors to do whatever was
necessary.
"I had an angioplasty and a
stent, and I felt immediate relief
of pain;' David said.
After a week of quality care in
the Soroka intensive care unit,
the Whitemans stayed at a hotel
for another week of recovery.
Their friends looked after the
children back home.
They developed a sense of soli-
darity with Israelis, rather than
seeing the country as tourists.
They shared the feeling of loss
when a soldier from Arad was
killed in the same Hamas raid
that resulted in the abduction of
Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
David is fully recovered and
back at work. The couple feels
they've received a miracle, and
they can't help focusing on the
message on Israeli dreidels: "A
great miracle happened here."
The miracle came with a
message, inscribed on the door
of the ambulance that carried
David from Arad to Beersheva:
"Dedicated by Manny and
Natalie Charach, West Bloomfield,
Michigan."
"If I wasn't frantic at that point,
I really lost it then:' Sheri said
of the moment she spotted the
dedication outside the hospital.
"They're friends of my parents. I
thought, `Oh, my God, if this isn't
beshert, serendipity; I don't know
what you want to call it. But of all
the ambulances, I ended up get-
ting this one — this was certainly
some kind of sign to me:'
The Whitemans interpreted the
sign to mean they had to raise the
$75,000 required to buy another
fully outfitted ambulance for
MDA.
"We have to pay it forward,"
Sheri said.
They have sent a fundrais-
ingletter to friends and family,
requesting donations to. American
Friends of MDA (AFMDA) to buy
the ambulance, and they're plan-
ning a systematic effort to bring
in what they acknowledge is a
daunting sum.
"This is the kind of thing that
you know your money can really
go to help people," Sheri said.
They draw encouragement
from the success of the AFMDA
chapter in Detroit, which holds a
successful honors dinner to raise
money each year. The Whitemans
spoke at the dinner in September
about their experience and how
the Charach ambulance saved
them, and they hope to help the
MDA support organization devel-
op a stronger presence in Atlanta.
It's all part of the great lesson
about Israel that David's experi-
ence taught him: "It takes the
people to live there, and it takes
the diaspora to help provide the
funds for the things that they
need. It was so clear. It really is a
collaborative effort." Ell
To make a tax-deductible donation
toward the purchase of an MDA
ambulance, send a check made out
to American Friends of Magen David
Adom to the Whitemans at 4584
Dairy Way, Norcross, GA 30092.
November 9 2006
25