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CORTLANDT MANOR, N.Y. Dr. Ron Nutovits had never seriously ridden a bicycle before undertaking a 300 mile journey through Israel to raise money for volunteer EMT organizations.
Lets say it was a real challenge, said Nutovits, head of the Emergency Department at Hudson Valley Hospital Center. Nutovits rode with a group of physicians from the Golan Heights in northern Israel to Eilat in the south for one week in early November. Some of those hills were really scary, but overall it was amazing, and we were able to raise enough money to purchase a fully-equipped ambulance for United Hatzalah.
According to Nutovits, Israel relies heavily on volunteering ambulance corps. Until a few years ago, the country didnt have a centralized emergency response system.
In some of these areas you are talking about eight minutes turnaround time, said Nutovits. Anything above five minutes is poor. Ideally, you want to have the patient stabilized in about two to four minutes for the best outcome.
The 10 people who undertook the tour had to purchase bicycles, find a tour guide and ferry supplies over tough terrain. Nutovits said he began the tour high spirited and soon realized he had accidentally read kilometers as miles.
I thought I was doing really well when I saw all those miles adding up, but then I found out it was kilometers so I was only doing about half the miles that I thought, he said.
During his trip, Nutovits also took the opportunity to visit the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv University and the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer to further promote emergency medicine as a specialty in health care delivery in Israel.
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