By Erez Ben-Ari, JTNews Correspondent
“You know, we are Israelis, and we’ve got chutzpah!”
With these words Daniel Biran, administrative ambassador to the Israel Consulate of New York, described some of his team’s interactions with the incredible, and often impossible, circumstances they had to deal with the Haiti rescue operations in January of this year. Biran, who headed the advance Israeli team to Port-au-Prince following the devastating earthquake that struck the area, spoke about his experiences at a presentation for the Maimonides Society, Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s medical professionals’ affinity group, on May 6.
Biran started his presentation with a video showcasing some of the horrific damage suffered by Port-au-Prince during the earthquake. He gave the audience a glimpse of what it is like to work and rescue lives at a place that can barely sustain human life.
“Just getting there,” Biran said, “was nearly impossible. The city’s airport was almost completely destroyed, so as I sprung from my home in New York to survey the area, I quickly realized that flying there was impossible.”
Biran and a small crew of rescue workers took a flight to Santo Domingo, and realized that even driving there, which normally takes six to seven hours, was impossible. With such rescue operations, the first 72 hours are the most critical, so while another team in Israel was looking into preparing aircrafts with the required manpower and equipment, Biran tried to rent a private jet as a means of quickly getting to Port-au-Prince.
When this turned out to be impossible as well, he was able to convince a local American army force to take him and his men on one of their choppers.
“The cooperation with the U.S. army throughout the operation was great,” Biran said. “They helped us a lot, and were very nice about it, even though we were a constant nag.”
Once the landed, he said, “we found ourselves in the middle of one huge post apocalyptic ‘battleground.’ Thousands of people were on the street, as their homes [were] destroyed, looking for food and water.
“At that point, we already knew Israel was sending in two aircrafts carrying over 200 men and over 75 tons of equipment, but even though the planes were already in the air, we had no idea where to actually land them,” Biran said. “But the Israeli chutzpah helped us out again.”
The airport was partially operating at the time, so Biran and his crew requested a landing slot. They were given a slot, but a week later. They persisted, and eventually got their slots, barely in time to allow the planes to safely land.
The team in Israel decided to dedicate more room on the planes to the medical staff and equipment, which was the right decision, according to Biran. “The rescue team was the absolute elite, crème-de-la-crème,” he said. “Doctors left their private practices, senior civil engineers and architects left their offices without hesitation and flew for 16 hours to spend an unknown amount of time crawling under shaky concrete wreckage. This kind of sacrifice is incredible.”
Once having landed, the team deplaned, and instead of taking much-needed rest, commenced in setting up a base and a hospital that started to receive patients the next morning, a mere eight hours past touchdown.
Despite having two large jets at their disposal, the Israeli team had to make some sacrifices to fit all the necessary medical equipment, meaning items like tents and food would not fit and had to be brought in from Santo Domingo.
“We found a kosher food supplier in Santo Domingo, but our rabbi didn’t accept it as it was not kosher enough,” Biran said.
However, the New York Jewish community came to the rescue and shipped $20,000 worth of kosher food. According to Biran, even the patients enjoyed the kosher food, and the improvised hospital quickly became not only the best — and only — hospital in the city, but also the best hotel and restaurant, feeding thousands of survivors daily.
The Israeli rescue team ended up spending two weeks in Haiti, and leaving was not an easy decision to make. “In most hospitals, once a patient’s life is no longer at risk, you send them home, but in this case, there was no home to send our patients to,” Biran said. “However, once the prime minister of Israel made the decision to discontinue, we insisted on finding a solution to every patient, one by one, no matter what.”
During the operation, the Israeli team treated 1,100 patients, performed 370 surgeries and 16 emergency baby deliveries.
“This sort of operation is extremely difficult to realize, “he emphasized, “but Israel will always be there to help other nations in time of need.”