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IDF Medic Talks about Army Life

(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix) Josh Sayles - Of the approximately 500 soldiers in Sharon Grisero's battalion in the Israel Defense Forces, there are only two women. Grisero, 20, is one of them. The combat paramedic spoke on March 19 about her experiences in the IDF. Being a combat paramedic, she explains, is "someone who is trained to give prehospital medical treatment in the field during operations." A female combat medic is rare in the IDF - women only serve in combat roles if they volunteer to do so. Her most memorable moment, she says, came at 1 a.m. during a shift in the West Bank, when a Palestinian taxi pulled up to the gate. Out came an entire family carrying an unconscious 15-year-old boy with no pulse. "We treated him for 15 minutes with all the medical supplies we had and all the training we had, and he regained his pulse and we took him by ambulance to an Israeli hospital," says Grisero. "At that moment, I looked at myself and thought, 'I'm a 20-year-old girl, I have a year of training and I was able to save a life.'" Still, she is wary of terrorists feigning an injury or illness in order to get close to Israeli soldiers. "Before I get to a patient, there's a whole team of people that come and search the patient (for weapons), and also while I'm treating (a patient), they're protecting me in a circle around me so that people won't use the situation to hurt us," she says.
2012-03-30 00:00:00
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