Stories From the Streets: Child In a Hot Car

United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Alan Malka saved the life of an infant girl one recent Sunday morning when he pulled her from a locked hot car in Petach Tikvah. 

“I was working at my job in the municipality when I received an emergency alert from United Hatzalah’s dispatch and command center regarding a young child locked in a hot car,” Malka recalls. “I drove down Sokolov Street on my ambucycle and was at the scene in less than a minute.

“When I arrived the father of the young girl was very agitated and told me his daughter got locked in the car after he accidentally left the keys inside. I pulled out the special equipment I have that allows me to open locked cars, and within 15 seconds I had the door open and picked up the infant girl. I gave her to her father, who embraced her warmly, and I performed a quick medical check. Thankfully all the girl’s vital signs checked out. She was in good condition.

“The father couldn’t thank me enough. And I smiled as I told him I was happy to help and that it was all part of the job. This is one of the many emergency calls I have gone to that make all the training and volunteering worthwhile. 

“I’ve been volunteering with United Hatzalah for the past 11 years, and this isn’t the first child I have rescued from a hot car. One month over the summer I had three instances like this. Each one is special and incredibly important, as being locked in a hot car can be fatal to a child in a matter of minutes. 

“I, myself am a family man. I have been married for more than 20 years and have a bunch of teenagers at home. While I’ve already passed the time where I have small children, I know what it means to be a parent having an emergency. Throughout the years we’ve had many of our own. Thankfully my wife has always supported me the entire way as a volunteer, as have my children. Volunteering as an EMT is one of the joys of my life. Situations like these, where I can save a young child from irreparable damage or even death, make it so.”

Raphael Poch is the international media spokesperson for United Hatzalah, Israel’s national volunteer EMS organization.