From Israel21c: An Israeli surgeon – on vacation with his family in London – sprang to action following last week’s terror attacks and helped save victims’ lives.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Benny Meilik, an emergency surgeon and consultant at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, had arrived in London the day before the attack with his wife and two children. They were looking forward to relaxing and getting away from the pressures of Meilik’s job.
But on the first morning of his trip he found himself dragging victims free from the wreckage of the 8:51 a.m. Piccadilly Line eastbound train and working frantically to save their lives.
The family were staying in the Russell House Hotel, next door to the tube station.
When the bomb went off in the deep underground tunnel, visitors at the hotel felt the tremor and heard the rumbling bang that signalled London’s worst-ever terrorist attack.
Meilik did not waste time, and his speedy response saved lives.
“I have heard enough explosions to know what they sound like, and when I heard the boom I sprung into action,” he told The Post.
I’ll bet he has. (ht: Sheryl)
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26 Comments
1. Jamie Irons:Roger,
This is why I followed my mom’s advice and married “a nice Jewish doctor.”
But seriously, is there anyone you would rather have on the scene than a guy like this?
His behavior is just one example of why I am convinced the Islamist project is doomed. Good trumps evil, every time.
Jamie Irons
Jul 15, 2005 - 3:15 pm 2. Jamie Irons:And speaking of busman’s holidays (of a far less consequential kind) just try being a psychiatrist at a Bay Area cocktail party!
(Bring your prescription pad!)
Jamie Irons
Jul 15, 2005 - 3:17 pm 3. richard mcenroe:Look for an article in the Guardian or Independent tomorrow decrying the Israeli presence in London that obviously provokes bombings…
Jul 15, 2005 - 5:02 pm 4. Buddy Larsen:Ethics tell.
Jul 15, 2005 - 5:41 pm 5. Buddy Larsen:Jamie–those cocktail-buttonholers–what are they after, health or a high?
Jul 15, 2005 - 5:42 pm 6. Rick Ballard:Buddy,
Bay Area – twin city to Manhattan for phony angst. “Health” is always relative and a pyschological hangnail can be a terrible thing.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:07 pm 7. TigerHawk:That’s a great story.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:12 pm 8. Baron Bodissey:This is one of the reasons I keep saying, “I stand with the Jews.” It’s like the doctors in Israel who treated the Palestinian terrorist in the same ward where they treated a little girl who might have been one of his victims.
The Jews are moral exemplars to the rest of us.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:22 pm 9. Oyster:It’s just like all the highly televised and printed “condemnations” from all the Middle East countries. Yet only one Middle East country immediately and overtly offered actual assistance. Israel.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:28 pm 10. Baron Bodissey:Yes, and remember when the Israelis offered help after the tsunami, and the Muslims (I think it was in Indonesia) wouldn’t let them in.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:32 pm 11. Buddy Larsen:Rick, that’s what I was–rudely, I’m afraid–getting at. Whether the continuing flight from reality is beginning to show up in the medical system.
Jul 15, 2005 - 6:50 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:FDA today approved a sort of pacemaker dealie that I guess (?) is subcutaneously implanted…for relief from otherwise untreatable depression. I wonder what getting about a dozen of ‘em installed would do for that exersize program I can’t seem to get started on. Put myself on battery power, yeAH!
Jul 15, 2005 - 7:16 pm 13. Buddy Larsen:Achh, very flip…sad subject…apologize for coarse gibe.
Jul 15, 2005 - 7:22 pm 14. Baron Bodissey:Oh, Buddy… You can be flip — you’re among friends!
Jul 15, 2005 - 7:35 pm 15. Buddy Larsen:Just the gulf between the the fashionably depressed, and the people in the London Tube. Makes for dark humor. But, negative, negative.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:03 pm 16. Baron Bodissey:OT: here’s some breaking news — the Indian government is not going to cave to the Islamists and the Sunni Waqf Board about the Taj Mahal.
Gates of Vienna post: A Waqf Call for India. And an article in Economic Times (of India).
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:29 pm 17. markus:Look, there’s only one problem with the “we’re good, they’re evil” routine. They’re playing the same game, too:
http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/
This is all pre-game locker room talk.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:36 pm 18. Buddy Larsen:What’s the solution, then? Switch sides? “They’re Good, We’re Evil” ?
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:49 pm 19. chuck:Markus,
Look, there’s only one problem with the “we’re good, they’re evil” routine. They’re playing the same game, too:
*Shrug*. So what. You’re over fourteen, you can deal with the subtleties. Or maybe not. The Left always reminds me of somewhat stupid teenagers, convinced of their brilliance, who never grew up.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:53 pm 20. markus:buddy: no, i don’t have any solutions.
chuck: and i’m not trying to impress anyone.
I do think it is important to recognize what we have in common with our enemy, and one thing is the capacity for moral outrage, and the willingness to do something based on that outrage.
Now, if in fact a key DIFFERENCE between us and them is that we’re capable of feeling compassion for their dead but they’re incapable of feeling compassion for ours…well, that’s something that’s also worth knowing, isn’t it. Is such a difference a sign of weakness, or strength? And when Chuck *shrugs*, is this evidence that in his case the distinction is not there?
I just thought they were amazing photos on that Islamist link. You can really imagine some young kid going to it and getting righteously lathered up.
Jul 15, 2005 - 9:23 pm 21. RBMN:Judging by what’s happening in Iraq today, and in London, I wonder if the terrorist suicide-bombers hate Freedom and Democracy even more than they hate “Zionists.” Those new Iraqi police, getting hammered daily by car bombs and still signing-up at recruiting stations, are many things, but they’re not Zionists.
Jul 15, 2005 - 9:26 pm 22. Buddy Larsen:It’s well that you point out that sort of site, Markus. Forgive a shrug, it’s due to thinking you were arrested at the thought of violence in the national defense against an evil attacker. Be different if surrendering in a war we didn’t start would be the end of maimed babies, rather than the beginning of even more. Plenty of pain everywhere, could be even more, so much much more.
Jul 15, 2005 - 9:37 pm 23. chuck:I do think it is important to recognize what we have in common with our enemy, and one thing is the capacity for moral outrage, and the willingness to do something based on that outrage.
Yes, this is obvious. Again, so what? Do you think this insight is anything but completely trivial?
Now, if in fact a key DIFFERENCE between us and them is that we’re capable of feeling compassion for their dead but they’re incapable of feeling compassion for ours
No, that is not key. Compassion for the dead doesn’t help anyone. The dead are dead. Compassion for the living matters though, and I think we have done well in that. Likewise, we have been careful in this war. Compare, for instance WWII.
I just thought they were amazing photos on that Islamist link. You can really imagine some young kid going to it and getting righteously lathered up.
Those unfortunates didn’t suffer WWI, so lack the proper cynicism towards propaganda. Many such pictures were also published by both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, I remember them posted all over the university walls. A friend of mine who had seen much combat used to critique the wounds thus: “Oh, that’s a good one,” somewhat like a student doctor playing macabre jokes.
I might point out that very little of this sort of propaganda is taking place here. Curiously enough, after discounting all the lurid tales of Nazi atrocities as propaganda, many were surprised at the end of WWII to discover the tales were true. There *is* some point to discovering the truth, uncovering propaganda manipulation, like the published “war” photos from the Russian porn site, and noting the importance of quantity and intent in such things.
Jul 15, 2005 - 9:43 pm 24. Brian H:marcus;
apparently you didn’t take Roger’s recommendation and read this dissection of apologia for terror. Give it a shot. Even you might learn something.
Jul 16, 2005 - 4:16 pm 25. Oyster:“Is such a difference a sign of weakness, or strength?”
The one thing that separates us from animals? Is this up for consideration?
Jul 16, 2005 - 5:13 pm 26. Gary Rosen:Markus:
“Look, there’s only one problem with the “we’re good, they’re evil” routine. They’re playing the same game, too:”
Only it’s not a game. If you think there is any moral equivalence, you’re beyond help.
I suggest you take a look at the opponents of the US over the last century – from the German imperialists to the Nazis and Japanese warlords, the Russian and Chinese communists and now Islamist fundamentalists. Do any of these groups have anything better to offer the people of the world than we do, even with our faults (we must have faults because we are human)? The answer is not just no, it is HELL NO!
Jul 17, 2005 - 1:21 am