Even 40 years of work as a nurse, including nine years as head nurse in the ER, didn't prepare Galia Rosenberg (62) for what she saw in the emergency department at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon on the morning of October 7th.
Dozens of injured arrived starting at seven in the morning, totaling about 350 on that terrible day, October 7th, 2023, all passing through her team's hands in the ER.
"I ran to the ER, there were masses of injured at the entrance where the ambulances are. Injured non-stop and also inside the trauma room. Usually, we treat up to three injured simultaneously there. That day we treated five and even seven.
I've been a nurse for almost 40 years. I've never seen anything like this, and I've seen many mass casualty events and many difficult things. I've never seen anything like this.
They arrived without a break. In the trauma room were severely injured. We started intubating them, both soldiers and civilians. There were many soldiers, many severely injured, many intubated. That day, we really worked on saving lives."
Galia recounts, "There were critically injured patients that we simply felt we couldn't give up on. We couldn't abandon them. According to mass casualty event treatment doctrine, you leave the critically injured and focus on those you can save. But we couldn't leave them. We treated everyone. We refused to give up on even one patient."
Galia says, "I've been a nurse for almost 40 years. I've never seen anything like this, and I've seen mass casualty events and many difficult things. I've never seen anything like this. There were many deceased who went directly to pathology, but some also came to us. I estimate about 100 deceased passed through my hands that day."
Rosenberg arrived from her home in Ashkelon at 07:30, after realizing something was happening. Throughout the day, she managed her staff, reinforced with additional nurses from the hospital. What she can't get out of her head are the young injured people. "It wasn't someone specific, but what touched me was that there were so many young people who were severely injured. Young people without an arm, without a leg. It was terrible, simply terrible. There were many amputations. And it wasn't just on October 7th, it continued afterwards."
The team continues to inquire about those injured on October 7th. Some come to say thank you, and sometimes they accidentally encounter videos of those in rehabilitation on social media and get emotional.
"Some sent thank you letters. There were families who came to thank us personally. There's a story of a soldier who was paralyzed, it's unclear if the paralysis was temporary or permanent, who was in our operating room and came with his family to say thank you. When I saw him coming to us, it hurt terribly. My heart was breaking."
"It touched me that my nurses who worked from the night shift continued and stayed," Galia says with a smile. "We called in staff from home but not everyone could come because of sirens, because some have small children. I remember the night shift didn't go home. They stayed here until the next night. Everyone had tears in their eyes but we all coped and worked. We wiped our eyes and continued to treat every injured person. We continued to save lives. That's what touched me more than anything."
After a few hours, a stream of family members looking for their loved ones began to arrive. Some were murdered, others kidnapped. Another event Galia doesn't forget is of parents who came looking for their missing son.
"The deceased were no longer with us in the ER, they were in pathology. Some were taken to the morgue, some to Abu Kabir. Parents came looking for their child, and screamed and screamed at the triage nurse's station. It was terrible. We already had social workers to help and they talked to the parents."
Barzilai's ER is on level minus one, a protected floor. Sirens aren't heard there and on the morning of October 7th, the staff was busy treating the stream of injured and didn't have time to process or hear the news. "We have a TV at the station. It's on all the time. But I don't even remember if it was on that morning. Only in the afternoon did we start to hear what was happening."
At midnight, when the storm calmed a bit and Galia had to drive home, her daughters, who live in Herzliya, called with a warning. "They said: 'Mom, don't leave the hospital. There are terrorists in Ashkelon.' They said there were terrorists near the sea and I usually drive home that way. The girls told me not to drive from there but to take another route. I left the hospital with my husband on the line. Luckily, many police cars drove in front of me and after me. By chance, unrelated to me, they were driving towards where I live. That was the scariest moment of that day, leaving the hospital."
Rosenberg, who manages the outpatient and inpatient ER at Barzilai, is considered a strict and tough nurse responsible for about 72 staff members. The events of Black Saturday cracked something in her shell too. In conversation, she says she's suppressing it, but she's also changed. "Today I don't get angry at someone who's late because her husband is on reserve duty. I'm accommodating. There's a lot of flexibility on my part, along with demands.
There are sometimes tears in my eyes, but if I fall apart - my whole team will fall apart. But when you see soldiers or families who have lost their loved ones, it's terrible. It's sad. A terrible feeling of sadness while working, frustration, anger, stress. The mind is constantly busy with what will be, how it will be, what's next, and also concern for the team not to fall apart mentally."
In the end, Galia also took care of her team's health. "We received a lot of help from management and they sent psychologists here, but ER nurses are like an elite unit. No one wants to show they're not strong. People didn't want to talk at all. We decided to try group therapy. Fortunately, it worked."
Israel Hayom contributed to this article.