Michael Strongin, a Magen David Adom-certified Hatzalah paramedic in South Florida, was woken up by his wife early Thursday morning in Miami. Strongin had gotten home from the hospital the night before with his newborn son. A few blocks away from his home, he was told, a building had just collapsed.
Leaving his family, he rushed to the scene in Surfside.
“At the edge of the building, I saw couches, bunk beds, furniture – what was remaining of how people had lived their lives,” he told The Jerusalem Post Sunday, recalling the first few minutes at the site of the devastation caused by the collapse of the apartment building.
Since then, Strongin, along with a team of MDA-certified paramedics who are part of the Israel-based volunteer emergency medical services organization, have been providing support to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue to recover victims of the disaster as well aiding grief-stricken families.
On Sunday, the death toll rose to nine as searchers worked to find more than 150 missing residents amid the rubble of the destroyed building. The death toll was certain to rise as emergency workers in Surfside, a shore town near Miami, were joined by teams from Israel and experts from Mexico.
Another Hatzalah paramedic, one of its directors in South Florida, Baruch Sandhaus, was one of the first on the scene. He explained that Hatzalah had gotten two emergency calls from people at the building asking for help.
“Once I arrived on scene, we were able to assess and realize that this is much bigger than the ordinary calls we are accustomed to seeing here,” Sandhaus described. “We immediately set up a triage site, working together with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue as they were pulling out the initial victims from the collapse. After the first ten or fifteen people came out of the building, most of them walking, they went through our triage site, we assessed, checked, and evaluated them.”
According to Sandhaus, about two hours later, a family reunification center was set up at the Surfside Recreation Center. Hatzalah helped treat over 60 patients for a multitude of medical issues. Hatzalah doctors also helped dispense medication on-site, as many residents of the building had lost all of their possessions, including their medication, at the collapse site.
At the triage center, Strongin also treated patients suffering the mental effects of the tragedy.
“I’ve only ever seen it myself in Israel, ‘nifgaeh harada,’ which is a special type of panic attack. I had run a team of EMTs and paramedics during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 down in Netivot. It was during that time that I had seen the same completely debilitating state of somebody experiencing that ‘harada,’ (anxiety) that trembling fear where one shuts down. I saw that here, in family members anticipating the worst,” Strongin recounted.
Sandhaus explained that “with each hour that passed, we felt that the anxiety was building with our members, as we hoped and prayed that there were still people alive down in the building.”
On Friday night, Hatzalah and MDA were in touch with the IDF search and rescue experts who were set to head to the scene of the disaster. Strongin told the Post that the emergency delegation from the IDF’s Home Front Command that arrived on Sunday to assist in the search was “hopeful.”
“They are looking forward to getting to work and are literally walking across the street right now to get onto the pile. I’m looking around and seeing rescuers who have been here for days, and while there’s certainly some physical exhaustion, there is hope. I don’t want to say they’re excited, but they know there’s still a mission to do here, and they know that they’re here for the families and for the people that are hopefully still alive underneath,” said Strongin.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai also arrived at the scene on Sunday and met with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Shai tweeted: “I arrived straight from the airport to the scene of the disaster in Surfside where I met with Governor @RonDeSantisFL and rescue teams- local and global. I expressed my deep sadness and message that the State of Israel is here to help in any way we can. #SurfsideBuildingCollapse.”
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