(JNS) Sarri Singer - 20 years have passed since I survived one of the worst bus bombings in Jerusalem's history. On June 11, 2003, I was traveling on bus #14, when a Palestinian terrorist strapped with explosives detonated them. The explosion left 100 of us injured and took the lives of 17 innocent people, including everyone seated and standing around me. I had moved to Israel only a year-and-a-half before and, ironically, had been volunteering with organizations assisting victims of terrorism. I can still vividly recall the sound of crushing metal and the blast tearing through the bus. Though I was burned and bleeding, I was alive, and someone helped me escape, pulling me through the torn frame to safety. I was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital with shoulder and shrapnel wounds, burns, and cuts on my legs and face. Currently residing in the U.S., I recently flew to Israel to mark the 20th anniversary of the attack and to sponsor a luncheon honoring the doctors, nurses and Hadassah staff members who cared for me. We invited other survivors of terrorist attacks who had been nursed back to health by Hadassah's exceptional medical team. Those able to come included Moshe Frej, a volunteer medic in 2002 when he was shot in the back while caring for ambushed soldiers in Hebron. Gabby Elbaz Greener was a student when her bus was blown up in 1995 (she is now a Hadassah cardiologist). Aluma Mekaitan Guertzenstein, a high school senior in 2002 who lost the use of an arm due to shrapnel damage after a terrorist detonated a bomb on her school bus. Dvir Musai, who was 12 when, on a cherry-picking trip at a farm in 2002, he stepped on a landmine intended for the farm owner. Gila Halili Weiss, injured by a bomb in Jerusalem's Machane Yehudah market while buying pastries for Shabbat in 2002. The writer is founding director of Strength to Strength, which assists victims of terrorism globally with long-term peer-to-peer support.
2023-10-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive