BGU & YOU | NOVEMBER 2023

Dr. Oren Wacht talks about the most difficult day of his career as a paramedic and his students who underwent a baptism by fire saving lives On October 7th, as the first victims were arriving at Soroka University Medical Center, BGU students and graduates in a range of healthcare professions underwent a baptism by fire in impossible, unimaginable conditions, as they helped tend to hundreds of victims with varying degrees of injury. Drawing on their resourcefulness and still incomplete training, they assisted the more experienced medical Their mentor, Dr. Oren Wacht, head of the BGU Department of Emergency Medicine and an active paramedic with Magen David Adom, was already on board one of those first ambulances that raced to Soroka. On that never ending first day, Dr. Wacht moved from one bloody scene to the next, treating dozens of wounded, sometimes under fire. Once he had delivered the wounded to the emergency room, he didn’t think twice about turning right around and returning to the battlefield. He was pulled over multiple times along the way as wounded soldiers and policemen were transferred to his care. Dr. Wacht shared some of his experiences of those traumatic events in a long interview with BGU Radio: "We stopped bleeding. We put people out to help them deal with the intensity of the pain. There are people here with us today who would have died if we hadn't treated them." In the same breath, Dr. Wacht praises the soldiers who saved their brothers in arms who were wounded on the battlefield. "I also treated wounded who received first aid in the field. The medics, together with untrained soldiers, gave them inspiring first aid. Without them, their comrades might not have survived." teams perform countless life-saving operations. For students and graduates of the Department of Emergency Medicine, theory became practice instantaneously.

Dr. Oren Wacht in uniform, in the immediate days following the attack. Photo: Courtesy

It all began with the cacophony of sirens that pierced the quiet holiday morning across large parts of Israel. "I woke up to the sirens, got myself together, put on a uniform. I was sent to Ofakim and the Gaza envelope settlements. From r Fire

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STRONG AND UNITED WE WILL PREVAIL