Early in the morning, an advanced life support ambulance crew was dispatched from the MDA station in Ofakim, led by the Ofakim station manager, paramedic Danny Sterkman.
“Early in the morning, they dispatched us to treat five seriously injured individuals in the area of Urim Junction. The nature of the injuries was not yet clear. On the way to Urim, a vehicle stopped me; they transferred to me a young man, about 17 years old, with a gunshot wound. I began treating him and, at the same time, tried to understand the circumstances of the injury.
No one yet knew about the terrorists who had infiltrated Israel and their killing spree. The people in the vehicle said that ‘soldiers’ had shot at them. Simultaneously, the dispatch center contacted me and asked if I could continue and reach additional seriously injured individuals.
I understood that the young man’s injuries in the ambulance were not life-threatening, so we could assist. We drove there. As we approached, we suddenly heard bursts of gunfire. While we were trying to understand where the sounds were coming from, the window of the advanced life support ambulance on the driver’s side suddenly shattered. I realized we were being shot at, but at this stage, I thought it was a mistake, that we had stumbled into a battle and were mistakenly shot, because since when do they shoot at an ambulance?”
However, then the ambulance driver, Peter Lesnik, painfully announced that he had been shot in the leg. Danny treated the injured, and Peter, despite his significant leg injury, continued to drive, moving them away from the terrorists.
Once they were far enough, Danny applied a tourniquet to his friend’s leg and stopped the bleeding, while reporting the danger on the road to the city to the MDA dispatch center.
Three days after he was shot, Peter’s first daughter, Mi-El, sister to his son Ziv, was born. He met her for the first time in his hospital bed.
“If it weren’t for Danny’s quick thinking, I wouldn’t be here today, and my children wouldn’t have a father. The greatest gift of life-saving I received is the birth of my beloved daughter.” Peter said, in precise words that distill the meaning of saving lives.
