INDIANAPOLIS — Dr. Louis Profeta boarded a plane to Israel last week and now he's there helping at Galilee Medical Center.
"They were looking for an (emergency room) doctor and I was familiar with the area, so I jumped at the opportunity to come up and see if I could help," Profeta said.
Profeta is an emergency physician at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital — Indianapolis. WRTV spoke with Profeta over FaceTime.
On the phone with him was Dr. Khalid Atalla, the head of the emergency department at Galilee Medical Center.
"Having people come from all over the world come to support us, hold our hands and hear our stories, the real stories that we do have and share, it’s been amazing and we feel that support," Atalla said.
Galilee Medical Center is the frontline of care for Israel in the North. It's just six miles from the Lebanese boarder. After the Hamas' initial attack on Israel, the whole hospital moved underground.
"It’s a bomb-proof hospital and we’re treating patients as fast as possible to keep the emergency room as empty as possible for that event to come where we actually need to treat injured people coming in as mass casualties," Atalla said.
Right now everyone at the hospital is going through mass casualty drills with Profeta's help.
"It’s an incredibly stressful time for them," Profeta said. "It’s incredible to watch the resiliency of the human spirit and everybody sort of focused on one goal which is making sure the patients who are in the hospital are safe."
