HHo0s

There״ was a call for help in a house which had been randomly shelledat Mujama’a St, East Gaza City. It was nearly 01:00 on the last day ofRamadan. The house was in complete chaos when the team arrived.There was dense smoke everywhere and a very bad smell whichhardly allowed them to breathe. I got the stretcher and the flashlightand entered the building, where I immediately saw a badly injuredwoman under the staircase. I took her to the ambulance and wentback to the house. We managed to fit 3-6 people into the secondambulance…. What shocked me most about this incident was thatI forgot the flashlight in the house and my colleague asked me to goback and get it, since we would need it later for other evacuations.When I went back, I heard the feeble cry of a small baby which I hadn’tnoticed before. I looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Then I feltthat the voice was coming from under a heap of rubble in flames.I searched in the rubble, though I felt my hands getting burnt, andfinally I found a baby around one month old. I took her and ranback to the ambulance, but before I arrived she stopped breathing.I performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on her, and shecame back to life. I was shocked by the incident, because she couldhave been one of my children, and I had almost left her behind in thefire to a certain death. I still thank God that I forgot the flashlight, soI was forced to go back to the house and could find her! I found apicture of her in the hospital on the internet, and I saved it, because itis a great encouragement for me. Now I want to look for her and see״.‏alive her grow, to tell her how proud I am that she is(Yousef Al Kahlout, a PRCS paramedic)6