Israeli Soldiers Rescue Injured Mountain Climber in Wales

Israeli soldiers in Wales come to the rescue of a 67-year-old mountain climber who was injured in a fall.

Two members of the IDF’s Search and Rescue Team successfully helped to rescue a 67-year-old mountain climber who fell and broke his leg in Wales, a country known for its challenging climbing conditions.

The Israeli soldiers, who were climbing at Bwlch y Moch at Tremadog, worked quickly alongside the Wales Air Ambulance and 14 ambulance team members. The man had fallen 32 feet or 10 meters on a route known as “one step in the clouds.”

The victim broke both his tibia and fibula, and these injuries were splinted prior to the casualty being immobilized and placed into a vacuum mattress. He was then stretchered the remaining 50m to the roadside until he was flown to a hospital in Bangor. The ambulance team reports that the man’s gear prevented him from suffering worse injuries.

IDF SEARCH AND RESCUE UNIT

Israel’s Search and Rescue course trains soldiers in first aid, Krav Maga, infantry, ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) warfare, and more. The unit is on-call 24 hours a day and deployed whenever there is a disaster.

Members of this unit have been sent to over 14 countries struck by natural disasters including the devastating 2010 tsunami when they treated 220 Japanese patients, saving them from almost certain death. The IDF also sent a delegation to Haiti that same year, where Israeli soldiers worked on the ground in Haiti in order to help remove earthquake victims from the rubble. More recently, last year, an Israeli delegation came to the rescue in Ghana, when a shopping mall collapsed and authorities needed international support to help citizens trapped inside the collapsed building.

By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel