About Pinchas Adiel

For Pinchas Adiel, a supermarket manager from Bnei Brak, lifesaving is a family tradition. He is the fourth brother in his family to be trained as a volunteer EMT with United Hatzalah.

Near the beginning of his extensive training course, while at work at the head cashier post, Pinchas suddenly heard cries for help from the sidewalk just outside the door. Without hesitation he jumped over the counter and bolted out the door, where he found some people holding a girl around two years old, and her mother shrieking, “My baby’s dying!” Instinctively, he took hold of the girl and tried to calm down the mother.

“I asked everyone what had happened and quickly understood that the girl was choking,” Pinchas recalls. “Amazingly, I had just learned in the previous EMT class the correct protocol for treating choking children! Without stopping to think I applied the interventions I had learned and within a minute the girl was breathing again.”

“When I returned to work the whole supermarket was abuzz at what had just happened and I was treated like a hero. Everyone wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me. This went on all day long. When I came home that evening and told my wife and kids with tears in my eyes what had happened, they understood more than ever the rabbinic adage, “Whoever saves a single life is regarded as if he saved an entire universe.”