Shlomo Demma, 31, “could have sat out this war, but he didn’t want to.”
“A combat medic in the paratroopers, he was injured in military service in 2014 and hadn’t been called up to reserve duty since then,” Barbara Sofer of Hadassah’s Offices in Israel writes in The Jerusalem Post.
Not even on October 7. But he was insistent. After numerous letters, phone calls and emails to the IDF, he finally got the green light.
Under fire by terrorists during a mission with his new unit near Jabalya, an IED struck near his position, causing a stone wall to collapse on top of him.
His injuries were severe; he had a hole in his back and his lungs had collapsed. He needed tourniquets on all four limbs.
His family — his mother; twin brother, Samuel, and older brother, Yonatan, a Hadassah doctor — were by his side at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem during seven hours of surgery. Shlomo then went off to Hadassah’s Gandel Rehabilitation Center, where he continues to do rehab three times a week.
“At first, I was helpless: I needed to be dressed and fed and taken to the bathroom. I hated it. I was badly wounded, but I was lucky. The explosion missed my brain, my spinal cord and my carotid artery,” Shlomo said.
Even now, he doesn’t regret his decision to fight. “We have only one Israel. I am proud to fight for it,” he said.
Read more of Shlomo’s story in The Jerusalem Post.
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