How many would be born? How many would faint while fasting? And how many would fall from their bicycles?
It was not for mortals to know before hand, but on Yom Kippur, it’s the job of Magen David Adom, Israel’s paramedic and first aid society, to deal with the medical emergencies after they happen.
Final statistics for the holiest day of the year 1,314 calls for aid.
There were 124 cases of fainting during the fasts. Seventy-four children injured while riding their bicycles, skates or skate-boards in the empty streets. And 29 people injured in 14 traffic accidents, caused mainly by the seduction of speeding along roadways empty of traffic.
Ambulances were summoned by 78 pregnant women, with four infants entering the Book of Life courtesy of paramedics or drivers before arriving at the maternity wards.
One of the women who gave birth in an ambulance had delivered her first baby in the same ambulance with the help of the same driver two years ago.
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