Director, Emergency Services, Bikur Cholim Hospital
Medical school taught me detachment, which is not necessarily
being callous, but enough to be able to keep composure.
Sometimes however . . .
On Hoshana Rabba, I had not even finished davening when I had
to come to work already. Within a few minutes, the ambulance
crew from Bnai Brak arrived with a six-year-old, struck by a
car while crossing a street. It was one of those images that
stick with me and I can't get out of mind: this young boy was
wearing his yom tov pants and shoes. It was an image
that reminded me of another auto accident I saw a few years
ago, when a young bochur was hit while crossing the
street: the Ketzos Hachoshen with blood on one of its
pages.
Neither child survived. I thought of the emptiness the family
would feel as others were preparing for Simchas Yom
Tov. I danced with my own child by hakofos, but I
could not control my tears by Kol Hane'orim. What
could that family have felt at that time?
There are two points here. First, drive carefully. This child
was hit and the driver never saw him and didn't even know he
had hit him, despite his crossing at an approved crossing.
There is never an excuse to drive quickly in residential
areas. Children who run into the street need to be
disciplined and spoken to. If you see a child run out in
front of your car, stop and ask his name, and then speak to
his parents. We are speaking of pikuach nefesh.
The second point is that I write this column and have learned
to be professional, but I am still a human being. And I
believe — very much so — that close to Hashem's
heart are a bloodied Ketzos, yom tov pants, the tears
of the families and also the tears of a physician that finds
it hard to continue.
