page_title: Hatzalah
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Hatzalah / Operations
caption_attribution_description: Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York
context_page_description: Hatzalah is a volunteer emergency medical service organization serving mostly Jewish communities around the world. Most local branches operate independently of each other, but use the common name. The Hebrew spelling of the name is always the same, but there are many variations in transliteration, such as Hatzolah, Hatzoloh, and Hatzola. It is also often called Chevra Hatzalah, which loosely translates as "Company of Rescuers" or "Group of Rescuers".
context_section_description: Hatzalah uses a fly-car system, where members are assigned ad-hoc to respond to the emergency. The dispatcher requests any units for a particular emergency location. Members who think they will have best response times respond via handheld radios, and the dispatcher confirms the appropriate members. Two members will typically respond directly to the call in their private vehicles. A third member retrieves an ambulance from a base location.
  Each directly dispatched Hatzolah volunteer has a full medical technician "jump kit" in their car, with oxygen, trauma, and appropriate pharmaceutical supplies. Paramedic (EMT-P) members carry more extensive equipment and supplies, including EKG, IV, injection, intubation, and other pharmaceuticals.  Each volunteer is called a unit (as in, a crew of one) and is assigned a unit number that starts with a neighborhood code, followed by a serial number for that neighborhood (e.g., "Q-120" means "Queens unit number 120"). Ambulances also have unit numbers in the same format, with the first few numbers for each neighborhood reserved for the ambulance numbers. Some neighborhoods have begun to assign 3-digit unit numbers to their ambulances, using numbers out of the range assigned to human member units (e.g., 900-numbers).
  In some areas there may be periods where coverage is not strong enough, for example on a summer weekend. When this happens, coordinators may assign an on-call rotation. The rotation may still respond from their houses, or they may stay at the garage through their shift. In such periods, Hatzalah functions closer to a typical EMS crew setup, though the dispatchers may still seek non-on-call members to respond, and there will still often be a non-ambulance responder as first dispatched, even if that responder starts from the base.
  In Israel, United Hatzalah relies upon mobile phone technologies which include an SOS app and a special emergency phone number, 1221, with messages to news organizations distributed by WhatsApp.
caption: Two Hatzolah ambulances on stand-by in the Upper East Side
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-M1", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 8.3.1 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:08 22:03:11", "Image Artist": "@Epicsunwarrior", "Image Copyright": "Ajay Suresh", "Image ExifOffset": "340", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[40, 116841/2500, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[73, 286841/5000, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "28", "GPS GPSStatus": "A", "Image GPSInfo": "1002", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1254", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "18615", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:07:08 20:17:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:07:08 20:17:54", "EXIF OffsetTime": "-04:00", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "40", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "87196351/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "87196351/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "80", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "BHP314820", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[12, 40, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "OLYMPUS M.12-40mm F2.8", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "AC5256835"}