Several weeks ago, IDF combat soldier A. was in a gun battle with terrorists in Gaza. At one point he had to lie flat on the ground to dodge the bullets. On the way down, he hit his knee very hard, but he didn’t tell his superior and stayed in the field for a few more days. At that point, he realized he couldn’t keep fighting without posing added danger to himself or his fellow soldiers, so he notified his superiors that he was injured.
The army sent him back to Israel for medical evaluation, which found that he had suffered tendon damage in his leg near the knee. He was hospitalized and had surgery on the tendon.
Now, he can’t put pressure or stand on his leg and is rehabilitating at home. Upon his discharge from the hospital, he reached out to Yad Sarah with a doctor’s order for a CPM device. He needs the physio device to bend his knee to certain angles as part of his recovery process.
Prior to the war, Yad Sarah typically issued about 40 CPM machines per month. Now, it now faces the equivalent of requests for 40 per day!
“I had heard there was a soldier in Rehovot who needed a home delivery – and I live not far away, in Yavne – so I delivered it to him,” said Eitan Dahari, Head of Yad Sarah’s Logistics Division.
Eitan is also part of the leadership team overseeing Yad Sarah’s recently-established Soldiers Rehabilitation Unit, which brings together the full range of the NGO’s services, matching them to injured soldiers. This includes the delivery of medical equipment rentals at no cost and booking accommodations at Yad Sarah facilities for families of wounded soldiers near the hospitals where they are treated.
- is among the 2,500 soldiers whom the Unit has aided to date, supporting his at-home rehabilitation with the convenience and compassion of home-delivered supplies.
“We’ll be here if he needs anything else – medical equipment or support during his rehabilitation process, or in the future,” says Eitan.
