Next-Level Rescue

A talk with Elimelech Esterzohn, CEO of Hatzolah of Central Jersey

Rachelli Silver

Photos by Yanky Elbogen

Every kid wants to be a hero.

Lights and sirens are the stuff of all little boys’ dreams. But what happens when they grow up? What happens when that itch matures into a sincere desire to help others?

It’s simple.

They join Hatzolah.

Elimelech Esterzohn, new CEO of Hatzolah, shares his own journey and how he plans to take this lifesaving organization to the next level.

Growing into the job

“From when I was a young child, I loved Hatzolah,” Elimelech Esterzohn relates.

While being enamored with flashing lights and heroic missions is common for young boys, Elimelech’s interest in Hatzolah stemmed from a deeper source.

“I always had a strong interest in medicine, particularly in emergency medicine,” the CEO of Hatzolah says. “I remember reading through the CPR books my sisters brought home. Whenever I went to the pediatrician or dentist, I would ask them a million questions about how the body works, how diseases work. It was a constant interest.”

Of course, he admits, the appeal of helping people and of showing up at a moment’s notice was also part of the attraction of volunteering for Hatzolah.

“Volunteering for Hatzolah was always part of my plans. At some point along the line, I decided I wanted to take it even further by becoming a paramedic. For a while, I also considered the idea of going for a higher degree of medicine, such as a PA, but after further contemplation, I chose to satisfy my love of medicine by volunteering.”

Elimelech took the requisite courses to become an EMT, and ten ears ago, after hearing that Hatzolah of Boro Park was looking for new members, he applied and was accepted for the position. After his move to Lakewood a few years later, he became a member of Hatzolah of Central Jersey.

“Hatzolah of Central Jersey actually sent me to paramedic school because as the neighborhoods that need Hatzolah grew larger and larger, there was a need for more paramedics.”

After a few years, Elimelech was asked by Hatzolah to formalize training for its members. While Hatzolah members were always well-trained, Elimelech put together a committee to structure the training and increase it in a meaningful way. Then, more recently, he was appointed CEO of the entire organization by the board of directors.

 

Sidebox:

The Hatzolah hierarchy

The Hatzolah leadership has a three-pronged approach. The most important is the va’ad harabbanim who ultimately have the power to decide on every aspect of Hatzolah and set the standards for Hatzolah members to follow. Then there are a group of ba’alei batim who oversee the Hatzolah finances, and finally, there are the captains who are in charge of the actual operations, such as training, equipment, and dealing directly with the members.

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Elimelech credits his new position not just to his experience as a Hatzolah member but to the outside skills he brings to the table. Previously, Elimelech worked in a family investment office as the COO. There were many companies associated with their office, and Elimelech’s role was to streamline their operations and restructure their processes, making them more efficient and productive. That strength, combined with the fact that he’s an insider and knows the Hatzolah culture and mentality, makes him perfectly suited to realize the Hatzolah vision.

What is the Hatzolah vision?

“It’s not fancy. Their goal is to help anyone who needs them in the fastest and most helpful way possible.”

But it’s not just the efforts of the dedicated, experienced volunteers rushing over at all hours of the day and night that make that happen.

Achieving that goal—especially as the population grows at such a rapid rate—requires executive skill and a keen understanding of operations.

That’s where Elimelech Esterzohn comes in.

 

Sidebox:

What’s the difference between an EMT and a paramedic?

The majority of Hatzolah members are EMTs. EMTs are very well trained and can render emergency care. If someone is choking, not breathing, in cardiac arrest, etc., they can provide the first line of care. A paramedic, on the other hand, has a higher level of training and can give an added level of care. For example, if a patient isn’t breathing, an EMT can provide oxygen or ventilate with a bag-valve-mask (BVM). A paramedic can put a patient on a ventilator or insert a tube into an airway. For many cardiac conditions, an EMT can do a basic assessment, give some medications, and transport, while a paramedic can do an EKG and carry and can administer over 35 medications.

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Conducting an orchestra

“I don’t take the credit for everything Hatzolah accomplishes. There are so many different teams and roles that are played. I look at my job as a conductor, as sort of tying the bow and assisting each department to perform the best that they can.”

As Lakewood and the surrounding towns head on a path of exponential growth, Hatzolah needs to expand to match the pace. But, given the intrinsic nature of Hatzolah, it’s not so simple.

“On the one hand, Hatzolah needs to be run like a an extremely organized business with strict procedures and guidelines. On the other hand, Hatzolah as an organization goes way past the extra mile for each individual, and it’s hard to blend those two objectives. We need to embrace the lack of rigidity when it pertains to a specific call or case, often going above and beyond but on the back end, we need to run reliably and professionally with protocols and systems. If rules aren’t followed, lives can be lost.”

It’s a complex balance, an oxymoron, really, but one that Hatzolah is always striving to reach.

“I wear two hats,” Elimelech chuckles. “I’m the CEO, but I’m also a responding paramedic, a regular rank-and-file Hatzolah member. In that regard, I report to the captains.”

To Elimelech, this system embodies what Hatzolah stands for.
“I embrace the fact that I need to check in. I love it. There’s a system with guidelines, and as professionals, that’s what we need.”

Pushing the bar

In recent years, Hatzolah responded to the growth of the community by adding many members and ambulances and increasing training, but Elimelech’s plans for Hatzolah goes even further than that.

“We want every component of our mission statement to be cutting edge. The plan is to go through the organization department by department, look at current practices, and see what we can optimize.”

The list of areas that Elimelech wants to improve is dizzying. There’s the fundraising for Hatzolah, community engagement, such as training with the community, public awareness, marketing, donor management, showing appreciation to the members with events and sharing in their simchos… The list goes on and on.
“We look at each area and say, ‘Is this as good as it could be? How can we improve it?’ A sophisticated organization never becomes complacent; it always moves forward.”

Elimelech’s goal is to keep Hatzolah at its best at the standards that are set by the va’ad harabbanim. Medical standards are set by the medical director.

Elimelech details some of the developments they’ve made to the organization. “We hired someone to provide quality assurance to make sure each call is handled properly; we sent a new class to become paramedics, so every peripheral area has paramedics; we bought sophisticated simulation mannequins for training. We’re doing everything we can so that every area has ample coverage.”

Training for its members has increased to address the rapid growth; every area needs to have the appropriate number of members.

“As residents move out to more suburban areas, we need more volunteers, but because the houses are so spread apart, they get less hands-on experience.”

Currently, Hatzolah members already receive more than double the state standard of education, but they’re continually looking to make that even higher.

But, as Elimelech stresses, despite the fact that he’s sitting in the CEO office, he can’t take credit for all the work.

“For every change that happens, there’s a whole group of people involved in the improvement.”

Elimelech notes that Hatzolah easily surpassed a 10 percent increase in calls this year over the year before and not just because of the community’s growth. “I would say that a big reason for this is because Lakewood is growing older. The calls we get aren’t mostly for children anymore. With so many older people in Lakewood, were seeing many more acutely ill patients.”

Little tips

It’s a pretty simple formula. In a medical emergency, call Hatzolah. But, Elimelech points out, there are so many little details that Hatzolah members wish the general population would know. They’re little details, small points, but they make a huge difference in the long run.

“We all daven for our children to be healthy, but there’s hishtadlus we can do as well.”

He urges parents to make it a habit to check their cars before leaving, and more than that, to come up with a system to make sure that they always remember to check.

“This type of tragedy can happen to the most organized of people. Put a sticky note on the dashboard or something that will help you remember to check before you turn off the car. We don’t tell people what to do, but we tell them to do something that works for them.”

Another frequent issue regards street addresses.

“Hatzolah members respond to critical emergencies. Every thirty seconds makes a huge difference, and spending time looking for the house wastes time. Reflective addresses are a must.”

This is particularly relevant in some of the developments in Lakewood where the house numbers are laid out in a way that is not at all intuitive. The even numbers can go in one way and the odds in another. While some developments, like Lakewood Commons, have very clear signage showing the correct direction for each set of numbers, in others, Hatzolah members can get confused and not know where to go. Elimelech suggests that if an emergency happens on such a block, whoever calls should give clear directions to the dispatcher on how to find the location.

Elimelech also points out that noodle soups, the love of children everywhere, require extra caution. “We see a lot of burns from those soups, worse than they would be from just hot water. There’s something in the seasoning that makes the burns deeper.”

Pool safety is another critical point. Elimelech reminds pool users to never take their eyes off the kids in the pool and for pool owners to put up a large sign with their address and Hatzolah’s number to be used in case of emergency. This way, no time is wasted.

Hatzolah receives the highest volume of calls in the early evening because everyone is at home then.

Always available

Many organizations struggle to recruit volunteers, but to join Hatzolah, there’s actually an acceptance process. What qualifications do they look for in a volunteer?

It’s not a complicated set of rules. They look for someone who can work with the Hatzolah lifestyle. “Obviously, they need to be certified and live in an area that currently needs more coverage. But besides that, we look for someone who has both the availability to take calls, a flexible sort of job, and the mindset to be helpful.”

Sometimes that mindset can lead to Hatzolah members helping out in, well, unexpected ways. In one atypical story, a Hatzolah member found himself fixing a woman’s sink!

“It’s not something we usually do,” he qualifies and shares the background to that incident. “Every night, we have about six members staying up all night doing night watch, fully dressed, ready for any calls.

“One night, a member responded to a call, and when he showed up at the house looking for the emergency, he found an elderly woman standing there, perfectly calm. She led him into her kitchen and pointed to the sink. ‘It’s leaking,’ she declared.

“This member happened to be pretty handy, so he got down on his hands and knees and fixed it. Afterward, she explained that she was worried that if she bent down to fix it, she would break something, so she called Hatzolah instead!”

On a more serious note, Elimelech adds, “This is what we’re here for. It often happens that someone calls with an issue that looks more significant than it really is. Maybe they couldn’t stop the bleeding or something else and by the time we get there, the patient is fine. People often apologize to us, but I want them to know that this s what we’re honored to do.”

It’s tremendously gratifying to Hatzolah members to not just provide emergency care but to be able to calm the patient down just by coming. “Calling us is never a waste of time.”

He begs people to call the dispatcher immediately as soon as something comes up. “Please don’t waste time by calling a friend who’s a Hatzolah member; they might not be available and then you lose critical time. This is lechatchilah.”

Of course, traffic, the ever-present bane of every Lakewood resident, presents its own difficulties, but Elimelech credits the Lakewood community for their responsiveness to emergency vehicles. “Additionally, Hatzolah, at its very nature, combats this problem. Since we have members scattered all over instead of at one central location, we aren’t limited by the traffic.”

The summer and bein hazmanim, on the other hand, do present difficulties, due to the lack of members present, and captains of Hatzolah are constantly taking stock and rearranging schedules when necessary to ensure proper coverage.

In the near future, Elimelech plans on buying new ambulances, building new garages, and overseeing increased training so Hatzolah can continue to achieve their goal, their vision, and their mission statement of helping others.

The little boy who dreamed of helping others now enables Hatzolah’s growth on the grand scale.

 

Sidebar:

The world view of Hatzolah

Nearly every decent-sized frum community is privileged to have their own Hatzolah. Are the organizations connected?

“In a legal sense,” Elimelech says, “we are not. Each community has their own va’ad harabbanim and their own standards. However, smaller communities certainly piggyback off the expertise and experience of other towns.”

Sidebar

Hatzolah by the numbers

250 volunteers in the Central Jersey area

Average response time for life-threatening emergencies: 90 seconds or less

Over 20,000 calls a year

Coverage in 6 townships

More than 30 vehicles in use

3 standing garages

More than 30 paramedics