Felix Lotan said the joy of helping people survive a disaster outweighs the tough nature of his job. (photo courtesy of American Friends of Magen David Adom)

Lying on his stomach while crawling through the rubble of a building that had collapsed during the earthquake on the border of Turkey and Syria in early February, Felix Lotan filmed as one of his teammates with Magen David Adom, the Israeli arm of the International Red Cross, drilled through concrete before extracting a young boy who had been trapped under a mattress.

Once the boy was rescued, Lotan, MDA senior paramedic and head of disaster preparedness, sprang into action, checking the boy’s vital signs and oxygen levels.

“My immediate responsibility is to assess him,” Lotan said. “It’s my job to make sure he will receive everything he needs regarding medications, regarding fluids, regarding food … He might have broken limbs or something, so there’s a lot of work to do.”

For more than 23 years, Lotan has played a crucial role in MDA missions in Israel and around the world, from the devastation this year in Turkey to the flooding in Houston following Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

On May 15, Lotan visited Los Angeles on a much different mission.

With support from the American Friends of Magen David Adom, Lotan is meeting donors who help keep MDA alive, and with UCLA students and Beverly Hills officials to discuss disaster preparedness.

It was Lotan’s first visit to L.A., but his work brings him in contact with people from all around the world. Wherever he goes and whoever he meets, Lotan always learns something new to incorporate into his work with MDA, he said.

“As an Israeli, I have my way to look at things. Someone who lives in Japan, he looks at things in a totally different perspective, and I believe someone from California looks at things in a different perspective than I am,” Lotan said. “If you’re only thinking that what you know is the only thing that is good, you will never be able to … better prepare yourself.”

Lotan believes the most important factor in a community’s ability to survive a disaster is the preparation of individual residents, as they are often the first ones to respond.

Simple steps can make a big difference, Lotan said. He encouraged residents to know where all the entrances and exits are in their home, keep a supply of cash, food and water; draft a contingency plan and keep a list of emergency numbers in case electricity goes down.

“Preparedness from the people who are in charge and preparedness from the community will create stronger resiliency to the event,” Lotan said.

Lotan’s passion for search and rescue was sparked when he was working as a scuba instructor in Israel. He wanted to learn first aid in case something went wrong underwater, and that led him to volunteering with MDA. Eventually, Lotan worked his way up the ranks, becoming an ambulance driver and a paramedic, he said. He also serves as a search and rescue specialist in the Israeli Defense Force reserves, where he holds the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

“I think that when you start dealing with human life you understand how important it is that you know how to help people,” Lotan said. “And after the first time, actually helping someone and you see the results, it’s something that you become addicted to … It just makes you want to do it again.”

Lotan said his deployments with the MDA are grueling experiences, often working 12-hour days for up to two-weeks in inclement weather. Sometimes, disaster zones can become hotspots for crime if people believe the government has failed to respond, Lotan added.

Despite the harshness of his job, Lotan can’t imagine doing anything else, he said.

He recalled his recent deployment to Turkey. Tens of thousands of people died during the earthquake, and Lotan and his team worked through a stretch of freezing temperatures, he said.

“You see people sitting outside the building that collapsed, making fires to keep warm and waiting for someone to come to this rubble pile that once was their whole life … and you see the hope in their eyes when you’re arriving, and you see the joy and smile when you are able to save somebody,” Lotan said. “The cold, and not [having] enough food, the very hard work around the clock, it starts to be very small when you’re comparing it to the satisfaction of seeing a person coming out of the rubble.”