Posted on 05/01/21
| News Source: JNS
“There were bodies piled up on top of each other—some of the people were alive, and some of them were already dead. I have never seen anything like this before,” said Itzik Itach, a senior volunteer paramedic and logistics director of the Jerusalem area for Rescuers Without Borders.
At least 45 Israelis were crushed to death and another 150 were injured, 20 critically, during a stampede in Meron in northern Israel at around 1 a.m. on Friday during the annual mass festival for the holiday of Lag Ba’Omer. Last year, crowds were not allowed due to coronavirus restrictions.
Video images from the scene moments before the stampede showed thousands of male worshippers, including children, crammed into a tight corridor trying to make their way down a staircase to exit one of the celebrations before the front rows of people slipped and fell, with masses of people falling on top of each other, causing trampling and casualties.
Dov Maisel, vice president of operations for the national emergency medical-services United Hatzalah, who was helping manage the situation, told JNS that some of his team members who witnessed the bottleneck of people “immediately started calling out on the radio that there was going to be a mass casualty incident.”
They were unfortunately proven right, as one by one people started falling and piling up on each other as the crowd continued to push forward towards the exit.
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The 300 United Hatzalah volunteers on duty at the time and first-responders from other organizations, including ZAKA, Rescuers Without Borders Israel and Magen David Adom, sprang into action as best they could to reach those in need of medical attention.
Itzik Itach, a senior volunteer paramedic and logistics director of the Jerusalem area for Rescuers Without Borders Israel who was also in Meron, told JNS what he witnessed while trying to save lives.
“There were bodies piled up on top of each other—some of the people were alive, and some of them were already dead. I have never seen anything like this before,” he said.
Itach continued, saying, “We had to decide who to treat first. We’re talking about hundreds of people injured in the midst of thousands of people in the crowd. This was a terrible tragedy.” Read more at JNS