MaDA Fashla

MaDA (n) Magen David Adom, organization, Israel emergency medical and rescue. 15,000 nationawide volunteers, 1000 paid employees.

fashla (n) screw up (Hebrew slang)

So my father-in-law sends me an email entitled this morning: "Chovshim, bah" (A Chovesh is an EMT).

Knowing I'm a volunteer EMT, and my 2 oldest kids are spending their summer vacation as Jr-EMTs riding on ambulances, he thought of bringing this story to my attention.

The story is all over Israel; the internet, radio, TV, newspaper.

An 84-year-old man gave emergency personnel a shock Wednesday when he came back to life after being pronounced dead by paramedics [Jameel: Actually, the MDA doctor pronounced him dead] at his Ramat Gan home.

A Magen David Adom ambulance crew was dispatched to the man's house in response to a distress call. After finding no pulse and ascertaining that he was not breathing, the man was pronounced dead.

A short time later, however, a police officer noted that "the corpse is moving his hand."

Police and emergency personnel had received a report Wednesday evening regarding an sick elderly man who lived alone in an apartment in Ramat Gan.

A nearby patrol and the medical crew who entered the home had noticed the elderly man lying motionless in the middle of the living room. They entered the apartment through the window in an attempt to resuscitate the man, who had no pulse.

Medical officials called for the coroner and a doctor, who pronounced the man dead and subsequently signed a death certificate.

After the medical crew left the premises, police began probing the circumstances of the man's death. As forensic investigators scoured the apartment for evidence, a policeman approached the motionless body, which to his amazement began moving its hands. [Haaretz]

Everyone in MDA knows that only a doctor can pronounce someone dead, unless of course, the person is decapitated -- its basic protocol. What happened here I can't tell you, but my kids were very embaressed when they heard the story.

Then again, MDA had another "fashla" in the news yesterday, when they eagerly released a news story that an unborn fetus and umbilical cord were found in a plastic bag in a Herziliya supermarket's parking lot.

After the bag and its contents were sent to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for analysis, the results were announced.

The bag contained...the remains of...


...a banana.

Oooops. A Fashla.

(Hebrew source for Fetal Banana)

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד