Join us as Mike Triem sits down with Shafir Botner, a medevac paramedic and director at the Magen David Adom Paramedic School. In this compelling episode, Shafir shares his gripping experience during the events of October 7, offering insights into the life-saving work MDA conducts daily in Israel. From managing a paramedic school to operating in high-pressure situations, Shafir’s narrative highlights the resilience and dedication of the MDA team in the face of unexpected emergencies.
Well, it’s Mike Triem with Crawford Media Group. We’re pleased to be joined today by Shafir Botner. Shafir is a medevac paramedic and director of the, let’s see if I can do this right, Muggan David Adom Paramedic School. Was I even close, Shafir?
SPEAKER 01 :
quite close then help us let’s make it easier for the American audience the Hebrew translation is Red Star of David this is Magen David Adon and if you want to make a short name it’s MDA just the first letter so MDA will be from now easier for all of us and And that’s the National EMS Organization of Magenta Vida Dome, which means we’re covering the country with ambulance services and medical emergency services, to be more precise, which means also ambulances. On our fleet, we have ambulances, motorcycles, bicycles. helicopters, and even boats. And people that are given first aid and first help, first responders, we’re calling them, without even any relationship to the vehicle that they are coming with. So we are doing the emergency medical services in Israel. By the way, we are the biggest volunteer organization in Israel. That’s wonderful. Yeah, we have more than 30,000 volunteers within our organizations. So if anything happens to you, God forbid, in Israel, our average time that someone will reach you is about four to five minutes. Wow. which is quite impressive, by the way, compared to the other organizations around the world. So anyway, my position in my organization is on a daily basis, I’m managing the paramedic school. We are the official certificate organization organization. Also, you will edit it afterwards. In Israel, we are the organization that allows to certificate paramedics, which means we are training the paramedics for our organization and for the IDF, for the police, or any organization which needs paramedics. We are doing that for them. So a lot of work on daily basis. I’m managing the paramedic school. I’m responsible for certifying them, which I also mentioned a big part of my day is dealing with the IDF paramedics. And except the position in the paramedic school, I’m also a medevac paramedic. which means I’m serving as a paramedic on the helicopter. We have two of them in Israel working 24-7, one in the south of Israel and one in the north. And jumping into October 7, which is Saturday, I was off duty. I was at home. I’m living, by the way, in the south of Israel, not far from the biggest city in the south, Be’er Sheva. Perhaps some of you know the name. Relatively close to Gaza. Not very close, but relatively close to Gaza. And all the kibbutzim that became famous after October 7. If you’re not an Israeli citizen, you probably didn’t hear about those names of the kibbutzim and the small suburbans and so on. places very close to Gaza Strip. And I was at home, and like most of the people that heard, waking up, the sentences or the words, waking up to the sound of sirens, that’s what happened to me as well on that Saturday. I was at home, waking up to the sound of the sirens. I know it sounds strange, but it’s not something which is very uncommon for us, And it happens from time to time to wake up to the sound of sirens. I know it sounds crazy, but Israel is a crazy country. So it took a few minutes to realize that something different is happening. And I realized that by the amount of the sirens. It was all over. That was not just a few of them. There was a lot of sirens. And reports on my organization app that people are really getting hurt and we have wounded people. all across the southern border of Israel and even in the center of Israel. So those are not false alarms, and something different is happening. As I mentioned, it took me just a few minutes to realize that, and I did what I’m doing every time, putting on my uniforms, getting into my car, and going to work. That’s what I did on that Saturday as well. I ran into my car, calling my colleague, which is managing the South District, and asking him, where do you need help? So he’s telling me, come to Be’er Sheva or to Ofakim, which is a small town more close to Gaza than Be’er Sheva, and he’s hanging the phone. I didn’t realize what is happening, why he’s saying Ofakim, but anyway, I’m on my car going to the same direction, and I’m reaching a junction, a T-junction, and I need to decide left to Be’er Sheva or right to Ofakim. And I have a millisecond in my head thinking, what do I have to do in a small town like Ofakim? I have much more… I will be much more efficient in Be’er Sheva. I’m taking the left turn going to Be’er Sheva. Later on, I know that if I would… taking the wrong turn or the right turn, going to Ofakim at that time. Terrorists, Hamas terrorists, were already located at the junction, at the entrance of Ofakim, and targeting me like, unfortunately, other colleagues, other MDA staff, I was targeted because I’m coming with a big truck that was used to be an ambulance with the siren, with the red lights. They would see me from miles and probably I was not here today with you. That was the opening of my day. I went to Be’er Sheva, to our ambulance station. I spent there helping the teams to arrange everything they needed. I was there like an hour and I got a call, come to the south helipad, the south helicopter base. We need to operate an additional helicopter. above the one that was already in shift. Be there as fast as you can. We need to open another one. It took me about half an hour to be there. And… The helicopter was there. It was a helicopter. It was a passenger helicopter that we needed to convert to an EMS, to an ambulance helicopter. It took, I don’t know, 15 minutes. And I’m getting a call from the dispatch center. In three minutes or five minutes, you’re going to have three civilian soldiers do what you have to do. And indeed, in a few minutes, we got those soldiers in our helicopter, me and my partner, which is, by the way, the chief paramedic of MDA. And it was just before noon on Saturday. And that was the moment I went or I jumped on the helicopter. And from that moment, we did rounds together. and rounds of rounds of evacuating soldiers, police officers, citizens from the south area of Israel, from the Nova Festival to the center of Israel, to the big hospital in the center of Israel. And the last, we went off the helicopter to, We realized that we went off the helicopter and going home was around 72 hours later on, which felt like hours.
SPEAKER 02 :
So three straight days of doing that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Three straight days we just stopped for refueling, restocking the medical equipment, changing pilots, changing clothes once. and three days in a row like we can say and While it was Monday afternoon, our last call, we were asked to take three soldiers from a small hospital in the south, in a city called Ashkelon, which is the closest city to Gaza Strip. We needed to take them from the small hospital to a big trauma center in the center of Israel. We were at the helipad in that small hospital, taking the soldiers inside our helicopter. All the team is inside the helicopter. The pilots started the engines. The rotor is spinning full speed. And suddenly, eventually, I know that, that was sirens in Ashkelon. We couldn’t, of course… hear the sirens because we were inside the helicopter. Engines are walking and a huge explosion in the helicopter or in the helicopter is the right waltz. We didn’t realize, we didn’t know what is going on, but the helicopter starts spinning and jumping on the helipad, almost flipping and I can now tell you that it took less than a minute, let’s say about 45 seconds, which felt like ever. Me and my partner speaking afterwards, thinking the same, that this is the end for us. I realized that we got hit from something. Somehow, I didn’t know what at that time. but the helicopter almost fell apart until the pilot managed to turn off the engine. Afterwards, we realized that there was an intercept just above us, and a big piece of metal, a sharp nail, fell on the helicopter, breaking one of the blades of the main rotor, and it felt like being in a washing machine. We told our patient, don’t worry. Everything will be all right. Everything is under control. Although we didn’t believe that. We thought that this is the end for us. I don’t know how, but I managed to shout into the radio to our dispatch center that we got hit. Please send ambulance. Because I thought that in seconds the ambulance would be for us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t know how, but the pilot managed to turn off the engines. We took the patient or those soldiers outside the helicopter very fast. We were afraid about fire in the engines. And just when we’re taking the soldiers outside, I see on my smartwatch that my daughter is calling again and again and again. And she knows that if you’re at work, she’s not calling more than once because I’m busy. But she called again and again. I don’t know why, but I kind of felt that something is wrong. And I answered the phone. She was shouting into the phone, Dad, is that you? Dad, is that you? Because my daughter, she’s a teenager, and we know that teenagers live in social medias. Someone around the country heard the radio, and it spread in less than a second all over the country that our helicopter got shot. hit by a missile and fell.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow. So she knew that fast.
SPEAKER 01 :
She knew that very fast. That’s why she called me. And then I realized, oh, God, 72 hours. I almost didn’t speak with my kids. I left them at home. And that moment after taking the patient outside back to the hospital, We left the helicopter over there, and that was the first time I went back home from Saturday morning.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
I got home, and then I’m doing that walk more than 20 years. I left home many times without even thinking about… my family that I’m leaving behind. Because I always knew that they are safe. That’s my job. I’m going to do my job. I know people from outside looking at my job, saving lives. And that’s true. But for me, in a certain moment, that’s a job and my family is secured and safe. I didn’t even think about… they are also in dangers. They were inside the house, closing the doors, the windows, sitting inside the safe room. And that was the first time I realized that. And when my kids went to sleep and my little daughter, she didn’t want to go to her room before I check under her bed that everything is safe. she heard that people were kidnapping from home. And she was afraid that someone would kidnap her in the middle of the night. That was the first sign for me, oh God. That was the first time I can tell after 25 years, more than 25 years, that I was traumatized. From my family reaction and from my reaction, to the situation. And that was October 7 for me, regardless that one of my colleagues, my direct employee, One of my instructors, Paramedic Amit Mann, perhaps you heard the name. She became unfortunately famous, killed in Kibbutz Berri in the clinic. And other colleagues that I knew for many years got killed. Our teams were targeted on purpose. and not by accident. Afterwards, we know that terrorists were found with maps and instructions in their pockets, how to get to MDA stations, how to locate the ambulances inside the kibbutzim and the small places, and even addresses of our staff in order to go and murder them.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you were a target without knowing that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Without knowing that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Never knew. Never knew. Shafir, you’re giving us such a heartfelt and honest picture of what happened October 7th. I don’t want to miss, because we’ve got a couple minutes left, can you speak to what are you experiencing now? What’s it like now? Because we get news reports, and I have a feeling we get about one one-hundredth of the real story.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it’s been two years since then. And we had the war with Hezbollah in Iran, which was a completely different story from October 7. It’s a completely different way of dealing with the damage and treating people inside buildings that were collapsed or got hit by missiles. And thanks God, now a kind of ceasefire, no sirens, and the tension is more… It’s less tense right now in Israel, but we are not… We know that in the Middle East, it’s a crazy neighborhood. And you never know what will come tomorrow morning. So we’re getting prepared for our next step, which we don’t know, by the way. We have no clue. But we cannot afford ourselves to rest and to be surprised or not to be ready for the next round, whatever it will be and whenever it will be. Hopefully, we’re just, you know, practicing, but we have to be prepared. And that’s what our organization is doing. We’re preparing for the next October 7th, for the next war with Iran. And even taking some more escalated scenario in case of, for example, a war with Iran and Not one or two missiles will hit simultaneously in Israel, but dozens of them will hit and also will hit our dispatch centers and no communication in Israel and no electricity and no option to restock the medical equipment. So we’re getting prepared ourselves to do so and to be ready for that scenario tomorrow. We are calling, and luckily we have friends all over the world, friends of Magenda Vida Dome. And by the way, our greatest friends are from the United States, and a lot of supporters, thank God, and a lot of volunteers. and people that are helping us to finance some of our stock that we need. And by the way, if you want to learn about our organization, which is part of the Red Cross movement, which is kind of politically complicated perhaps for a Jewish era, Of course, without getting into the politics of that, regarding the treatments with the hostages, it’s a very big movement and the part of doing the life-saving… actions so we’re quite good with them and they’re helping us and we’re part of that movement and so if you want to learn about our organization you can get into savinglifeinisrael.org and you will find a lot of information about our organization and you can join us you can be a friend of Magen David Adom helping us to save lives that’s what by the way our main goal we have in our organization is You can find people from all the variety and the vast of any opportunity you can think of. We have Muslims and Ethiopians and Arabs and transgenders, whatever you want, walking together, shoulder to shoulder. You can find an ambulance with a Muslim paramedic, Christian paramedic, uh driver and the orthodox uh orthodox jewish orthodox volunteer you can find them all walking together so what you see on the news or on the media regardless to the your favorite channel uh that’s not the real reality here in israel So don’t believe ever all you see on TV and newspaper or whatever media channel that you are consuming.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Shafir Botner, Shafir, you’ve been so transparent, raw, and real with us. We’re very grateful for that. And you said the website savinglivesinisrael.org, savinglivesinisrael.org. And I love that people in the States are supporting MDA. That is heartwarming is not a good word because that’s not strong enough. That’s so vital. So we urge our listeners, savinglivesinisrael.org. Shafir, we could talk to you for three hours, but we can’t. So thank you so much for taking the time with us. You’re a blessing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER 02 :
And thank you for your service. You are serving Israel in a way that We just can’t even comprehend. So thank you for that.
