It’s a wrap
Filed under: A New Reality, design, General, health, Medical Breakthroughs, News, Technology, War
We first became aware of it back in 2005 when ISRAEL21c reported how American soldiers wounded while fighting in Iraq were being treated with a special, new Israeli-made bandage that effectively stopped traumatic hemorrhaging wounds with a built-in pressure bar.
The Emergency Bandage, developed by First Care Products, a tiny four-man Jerusalem start-up, allowed medics to twist the bandage around the wound once, and then change the direction of the bandage, wrapping it around the limb or body part, to create pressure on the wound. The pressure bar also enables a soldier to use the bandage on complicated injuries like the groin and head, which require wrapping in different directions.
The Emergency Bandage was back in the news this week in another more recent context – the January 8 shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. First responders credited the Emergency Bandage, commonly known as “the Israeli bandage” with saving lives in the aftermath of the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and 13 wounded.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency report by Ron Kampeas, Pima County officials displayed the kit at a Jan. 21 news conference in Tucson, along with other military-grade gear used in ministering to the wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting.
“Without this care it would have definitely been a different situation,” Dr. Katherine Hiller, who had attended the wounded at University Medical Center, told The Los Angeles Times.
While it wasn’t clear whether the Israeli innovation was used specifically on Giffords, the bandage is known for its utility in stanching head wounds, and one model covers both entry and exit wounds, which Giffords is known to have sustained.
Since its 1993 invention, the Emergency Bandage has become standard issue in militaries throughout the world and is considered the first major innovation in bandages since the 1940s. It was invented by an American immigrant to Israel, Bernard Bar-Natan, who served as a medic in the IDF, and disgruntled at the stunted growth in the bandage field, formed First Care.
If there ever was a case to back up claims that Israeli ingenuity and saving lives around the world, this is it. Even Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, reportedly said that learning of the bandage’s role in saving lives in Tucson has been a highlight of his stint as ambassador.
From playmates to fallen soldiers
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, War
Amihai Itkis and Emanuel Levy (right).
However, here in Israel, it’s almost impossible to not have at least a second or third degree connection with our fallen soldiers – they’re either someone’s grandson, former teacher, cousin of a work mate, or some other relation that brings the tragedy all too close to home.
Last week’s fatal crash of an F-16I fighter jet during a training mishap near Mitzpe Ramon, which claimed the lives Maj. Amihai Itkis, 28, and navigator Maj. Emanuel Levi, 30, was another tragic story we’ve become all too used to hearing about.
Itkis, 28, from Sde Warburg in the Central region, was the middle child of three. Adding to the tragedy was the disclosure that his older brother Barak was killed in action while serving in the navy in 1998. Itkis was to be married in four months and is survived by his parents and one remaining sibling.
Levi, 30, from Ma’aleh Adumim, was the eldest of four children, and is survived by his parents, two brothers currently serving in the IDF, and a sister.
Just so happens that my oldest daughter attended grammar school with Levi’s sister, and a couple years later, my younger daughter attended grammar school with one of Levi’s brothers.
Both my girls, now adults, were home this past Shabbat, and they recalled seeing their friends’ older brother around the house – just a kid himself back then They had both lost touch with the Levis over the last 10 years or so, as they attended different middle and high schools.
But their sadness and concern was apparent as they faced the sobering reality that the playmates of yesteryear are now the fighters defending our country and putting their lives on the lines. It’s a reality we all carry with us every day.
Hebrewman
Filed under: Art, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture
Marwa Abdel Karim sings a song by Sarit Haddad (photo: AFP)
There are nearly no Jews left in Iraq, but modern Hebrew is still being taught at Baghdad University to some 150 students, according to a recent AFP story. Never mind that learning the language was banned from the 1930s, there is a Hebraic department in the university, and in addition to learning the language, they recently held a festival of Hebrew songs and poetry.
The AFP reporter who wrote the story told of Marwa Abdel Karim singing “Filled With Love” (or Ahava Betochi), a Sarit Hadad song, to her fellow students. She found the song online, and is also somewhat bemused by her choice of language. But despite her friends’ ridicule and parents’ disappointment, she plans on continuing her studies in Amman and then wants to teach at her alma mater.
At one time, Hebrew-speaking Iraqis could get a job with former president Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services. But now that terrorism is the country’s major security concern, those jobs are much harder to find. Ahmed Saadun, another student of Hebrew, said he would check out the foreign affairs ministry and newspapers when he graduates. Still, he told the AFP reporter, he’s aware of the ironies in his situation.
Here’s the real thing, by Sarit Hadad:
From Israel to Afghanistan
Yaakov (not his real name) is one of the most unusual Anglo immigrants to Israel I’ve met in a long time: he’s just taken a job with a private U.S. military contractor to guard the American embassy in Kabul. That’s right, a Jewish Israeli in Afghanistan armed with an AK-47.
I met Yaakov at the annual Independence Day BBQ hosted by my friend and Israel21c colleague David Brinn. Yaakov was a U.S. Marine before making aliyah four years ago. He now lives in Ma’aleh Adumim with his wife and young daughter.
His work since immigrating has been sporadic – too old for the military and too qualified for a local security job. So, in order to feed his growing family, he’s returning to the work he’s done so well in the past.
The firm he’ll be working for is “like Blackwater,” he told me – Blackwater being the controversial military company to which the U.S. State Department outsources certain defense functions. Blackwater has been engaged in a number of high profile kidnapping cases in the past, paying ransom money that the U.S. would prefer not to talk about.
Yaakov’s tour of duty is for a year – 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off. His flight to Afghanistan takes him through Dubai where Israelis are not particularly welcome these days (he has to hide his Israeli passport).
Before his latest posting, Yaakov spent some time in Iraq. Wasn’t it terrifying there, I asked? He countered by reminding me of how people viewed Israel during the height of the Intifada – a country where bombs were going off every day and it wasn’t safe to sit in a café or take a bus.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. We continued to – and still do – live a normal life, taking our kids to school, shopping, going to the movies. Ditto for Iraq, he said. About the biggest problem Yaakov encountered was gaining weight. “The food at the cafeteria on the base was too good.”
Yaakov added one caveat about “normal life” in Baghdad: Absolutely everyone, including kids, is armed. That would certainly give me pause for concern as I headed out to buy a falafel.
Danger, danger everywhere
Tel Aviv bathers live in fear of sand rash.
The annual ranking of 144 of the world’s nations based of how peaceful they are perennially places Israel near the bottom of the list, with countries like New Zealand and Iceland fighting it out for the safest (New Zealand edged out its competitor this year, with Iceland’s financial collapse evidently pushing its residents closer to derangement which influenced its drop to fourth place.)
The index was collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit for a think tank called the Institute for Economics and Peace. It uses a weighted mix of 23 criteria, including foreign wars, internal conflicts, respect for human rights, the number of murders, the number of people in jail, the arms trade, and degrees of democracy (The US is ranked number 83 and Britain is 35 – last for the third year in a row is Iraq). Even Iran (99) and Syria (92) are allegedly safer than Tel Aviv.
It’s kind of bizarre to find us ranked so low, given that criteria. I could see it if we were looking at benchmarks like susceptibility to sun dehydration, or possibility of heart attack due to pushy, obnoxious neighbors, or likelihood of stroke due the number of commercials during Channel 2 programming.
But Israel dangerous like Pakistan and Congo? Unless you’re in Sderot (and when was the last time someone was injured by a Kassam there?), a settler living in an illegal outpost, or a Palestinian terrorist in the scope of the IDF, I don’t think so. Of course, all that could change if Iran makes good on its threat to annihilate the Jewish state, or if Hamas or Hizbullah decides to raise their profile in their agression against us.
But right now, if Israel is the fourth most dangerous country in the world to live in, someone had better tell these people on the beach.
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