(Communicated by medical center public relations)
On May 19, 2008, thirty-two-year-old Nadia Aieed was filling a water bucket from a water pipeline in the fields between Palestinian Jericho and the nearby Israeli Moshav Argamon. This is an area of the Jordan Valley located several miles north of the Dead Sea. Without warning, a poisonous Echis Coloratus (Middle East saw-scaled viper) struck Nadia on the top of her left sandaled foot, inflicting a deep and painful wound.
Nadia was screaming and writhing on the ground in pain when her mother, Watfa, who was working with her in the fields, ran to her daughter. Their screams attracted the attention of a couple of moshav men who were also working in the distant fields. They rushed the stricken young woman to the moshav’s medical clinic and from there a military ambulance was summoned.
Within minutes, an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) ambulance arrived with a driver and paramedic (both armed and in IDF uniform) and assisted the rapidly deteriorating Nadia into the vehicle together with her mother. They sped north through the Jordan Valley. There were no delays whatsoever at the Israeli security checkpoints along the valley route – the ambulance with the two Palestinian women inside was rushed through. By the time they reached the Israeli city of Beit Shean, Nadia was vomiting blood and losing consciousness. After another half hour, the ambulance arrived at the emergency room of Emek Medical Center, with Nadia by then totally unconscious and suffering from severe internal and external bleeding.
Among the deadly effects of this snake’s venom is hemostatic failure, or a breakdown of the body's coagulation mechanism. The young Arab woman was treated with antivenom and admitted for hospitalization in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). When she was sufficiently recovered, a hospital spokesperson interviewed her (21 May 2008). Her mother, Watfa, was by her side, and a young Muslim woman whose infant daughter was being treated there acted as an interpreter.
Watfa was asked if she was afraid of traveling in an IDF vehicle with armed soldiers.
‘‘Not for one second,’‘ she answered. ‘‘Those men, including the Jewish farmers, came to help save my daughter, and I only felt gratitude and never any fear.’‘
‘‘How do you feel here in an Israeli hospital surrounded by Israeli Jews and Arabs?’‘ the interviewer asked, referring to the multiethnic staff and patients gathering around them.
Nadia smiled and Watfa looked around her and then raised her eyes towards heaven before answering softly, ‘‘You saved my daughter’s life. I have three other daughters and two sons, and I do not fear your people. I bless them.’‘
Nadia was transferred to a bed in Emek Medical Center's Internal Medicine department, and in a few days she will be home with her family. Nobody has any illusions about their inability to pay for the medical treatment the young dying woman received. But, as the director of the medical center, Dr. Orna Blondheim, puts it, "We have proven over the years that all the people of our region, Jews and Arabs alike, may depend upon us to treat every patient with unprejudiced dedication."