Just Another Day of Bloodshed

By Yossi Frankel

Today, after a couple of days of pretty quiet I was in my office at the ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem for an interview about the work that we do. Suddenly during the interview the CEO of ZAKA, Mr. Dubi Weisenstern runs into the room, there’s an attack around the corner, under the bridge.

Without batting an eyelid, I grab the ZAKA vest from the back of my chair, run out the room, while tripping over the camera and run down the stairs. I run to the call, which was less than a minute away to find chaos yet again in the air.

A white Mazda car, sitting over a fire hydrant. The doors open people strewn all over the 3 lane main street. I start to triage, while calling over my radio for more members. All of a sudden I hear a barrage of gun shots. I turn around to see 2 people with their guns drawn firing and neutralizing the terrorist still in his car.

I administer medical assistance to a roughly 30 year old male, screaming in pain, blood seeping down his right leg. When another team arrives I have them take over while I run towards the bus stop.

I arrive there to be confronted by a crazy scene of an injured mother hysterically calling for help. “My baby, my baby!” I look around and see the baby on the floor, blood gushing from his left leg. This baby is no more than a year old I think to myself, as I grab the baby, blood soaking through my shirt to my skin. I run to the ambulance that had just pulled up, passing the baby over to the medics on board.

“Yossi, take a breather,” I say to myself. “There’s enough medical teams at the scene.”

I then go over to gather all the ZAKA members together to make sure that everyone is ok and to prepare the equipment to do the work I most hate. Once receiving the go-ahead from the police, I together with my Angelic colleagues approach the body while rolling open the black bag. We bag the body and load it onto the ZAKA ambulance. The ambulance leaves, my job is done at the scene, time to head back to my office with hope that I the cameraman and interviewer didn’t get upset. I stop off on my way in to get something to eat before going up to my office.

I arrive at my office. I apologize to the crew waiting patiently for me to return to continue our interview when my phone starts ringing off the hook. From one call to another, all different press representatives calling to get information about the incident.

I apologize to the crew sitting in front of me and tell them, today was like any other day in Israel, the unpredictable reality of yet another attack. I finish my cut short interview early. With the need to head to what some people call “my get away job”, the actual job which pays my physical bills, my bar/restaurant (Mike’s Place).

I arrive at work, I’m not yet ready to go in, I’m still seeing the flashbacks from the scene. I pick up my phone, I call my mother, speak to her for just a couple of minutes about the scene and she her soothing, caring and loving voice calms me down and I’m ready to start my night shift. I realize that I can’t go into a place where people want to have fun with a shirt that’s full of blood, so I run to the closest men’s clothing store and buy a new shirt, asking for a bag while ripping off my present blood soaked shirt.

I walk back to work, while passing a garbage can, I say good bye to one of my favorite shirts. I then enter the building of a good friend of mine to seek comfort and support before a long night ahead of me.

This is my life. This is the life of my fellow voluntary colleagues. The life of Am Yisrael. The life of ZAKA. There was no better message other than the baby’s operation was a success and she’s going to survive.

if you would like to support Yossi and the other members of ZAKA with equipment, please go to www.zaka.us and donate.