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

My image of working on an ambulance included needles, a few broken bones, some blood, and maybe a heart attack or two. I never imagined that the most difficult part of my day would be heavy lifting.

On Tuesday I went out with a driver I had worked with the previous week, and it was nice to have some continuity. The driver and I had developed a rapport; he knew what to expect from me (i.e. no Hebrew) and I knew what he was looking for in a volunteer. We worked well together, which was good because around 11am, the other volunteer had to go home.

I had heard that there can be anywhere from two to five people in an ambulance, but I had never yet been left alone with a driver. I have found that three people is the ideal number: one person to drive, one person to fill out the forms, and one person (me) to sit in back with the patient. With only two people, I was responsible for taking care of everything while we drove to the hospital.

Unfortunately, it was also raining on Tuesday, and MDA was exceptionally busy. We had six calls throughout the day, which kept us very busy. Every time we approached the station for a break, another call would come over the radio, sending us out once again. As soon as the other volunteer left we got called to care for a large woman who was suffering from pneumonia. She lived on the third floor. My driver and I had to place the woman on the tiny chair and then carry her down three flights of stairs. By the time we reached the ground floor, I was wet and exhausted. In the ambulance I took the woman's vital signs and then made my best efforts to fill out the required forms. Although I cannot read Hebrew, I have learned how to write (at least with block print that looks akin to a 6-year-old"s handwriting), so I am able to carefully copy the writing from the patient’s ID card onto the form. Then, just as I was finishing, it was time to unload the patient, submit the forms to the hospital, and then once again lift the patient, this time from the stretcher onto the hospital bed. I was exhausted.

When we arrived at our next call I was not surprised to see that once again we had to ascend several flights of stairs to reach our patient. Once again, the patient was a very large woman; this woman suffered from edema and could not walk, so once again we prepared to lift. I knew that I was going to be very sore the next day.

Finally, around 3:30pm we pulled into the MDA station, exhausted and ready to go home. We refilled the gas, locked the ambulance, and walked back toward the station, only to hear my driver called to the ambulance once again. I wasn’t going to desert him at this point, so we both climbed back in for a minor car accident call. Finally, around 4:45 I started walking home.

I had seen both Kathryn and Paul briefly at the hospital, and I got the impression that they had also had extremely busy days. However, despite my exhaustion, I also felt profoundly satisfied. This was the first day where I felt like I was played a very important role; there is no way that my driver could have carried those women by himself. Moreover, I had managed to collect vitals and fill out the forms, unassisted by more experienced volunteers. I finally felt like I was getting the hang of this whole ambulance work thing.