When he was six, Eli Beer witnessed a bus bombing in Jerusalem on his way home from school. Right then he decided to take a career that saved lives. At age fifteen, he took
an EMT course and began volunteering on an ambulance. Sadly, he discovered that,
when someone truly needed fast medical attention, the ambulance just
wasn't able to get there in time because of traffic, distance and other delaying factors.
At age seventeen he organized a group
of EMTs who also worried about lives lost through delays. They began to listen to police scanners
and rush to the scene when medical help was needed in their
neighborhood. Thus began United Hatzalah, which is Hebrew for
“Rescue”. Twenty-five years later, the organization has more than 2,000
volunteers and has helped more than 200,000 people in the past year alone. Eli Beer is United Hatzalah’s president.
Beer has
responded to some of the worst civil, wartime and terror-related
incidents. In 2010, he was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year in
Israel by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and, two
years later, became a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Married
with five children, when Beer is not saving lives or guiding United
Hatzalah, he manages the family real estate company, Beer Realty.
This is the Fastest Ambulance in the World!
