Michelle Bowman, ARC/GNY Assistant Director of Training and Logistics, writes about her historic trip to Israel to work as an MDA Ambulance Responder.

On Monday morning we started our training for Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli version of the Red Cross. As much as we all enjoyed our day of wandering the city, we were also looking forward to embarking upon the training that would prepare us for the real purpose our visit—volunteering for Israel’s primary ambulance company.

Training started at 11am, so we intended to leave around 10:30am to ensure that we would arrive on time. Around 10am, I knocked on the boys’ room to see if they wanted to go get breakfast with us. They were just waking up. After a quick hustle, we managed to arrive at the University campus by about 10:55am. Unfortunately, we had no idea where to go once inside the campus. We asked numerous security guards and passersby where we could find the “hostel”, which was the term we had been given for the location of our training, but nobody could help us. (I was even able to practice my Hebrew for the first time by asking “Aifoh yesh hostel”; where is the hostel?) We frantically called the program coordinator, not wanting to show up late for our first day of class, but she didn’t answer. Finally, someone had the brilliant idea of asking for MDA, and we were quickly directed to the correct building.

During a first aid training session, two members of the Chapter team, Francis Englert, left, and Paul Challen, practice administering and evaluating blood pressure tests.

We had underestimated the prominence of MDA in Israel. Everyone in Israel—from taxi drivers to store clerks—knows and respects MDA. It is the equivalent of the ambulance service in the United States, but it is staffed largely by Israeli youth volunteers and overseas volunteers who work hand-in-hand with trained paramedics, EMTs, and doctors. They have a remarkable organization that makes a profound impact in the country. During the first day of our training, our instructors introduced us to MDA, and the importance of the work that we were doing. Then we jumped immediately into our curriculum.

The MDA overseas volunteer program is a joint program between MDA and The Jewish Agency with a two-fold mission: to provide competent and qualified volunteers for MDA ambulances and to introduce young, Jewish foreigners to Israel. Our program was extremely international. Our instructors were Sarah, a young French woman with an Italian father who was now fluent in French, Italian, English, and Hebrew with some knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese, and Esther, a young Israeli woman who spoke English so perfectly that it was difficult for us to remember that her first language was Hebrew. Our class had 18 students. In addition to the four of us from ARC/GNY, the class had two Australians, one Mexican, one Guatemalan, two Canadians, three Britons, and five other Americans.  Everyone brought a unique perspective to the program and after a few 14-hour days of training, we all grew to be very close.

During the first day of training we learned CPR, a refresher for most of us from ARC/GNY. Their teaching style was different, and I noticed some slight deviations from “American Red Cross CPR”, but overall the content was the same. During the training program, we were supposed to arrive at 8am for breakfast and leave around 9:30pm, eating all three meals at the hostel. Most course participants were staying at the hostel, but the ARC/GNY contingent commuted each day from our hotel in downtown Jerusalem. In some ways it would have been nice to have the full immersion experience, but I think all of us enjoyed having the break and separation at the end of the day.