A 24-year-old man, a resident of Or Yehuda, died as a result of a series of serious omissions. This is alleged in a lawsuit for 2.5 million shekels recently filed by attorneys Rafael Almog and Sephi Klu of the Almog-Shapiro law firm, on behalf of the deceased's parents.
The lawsuit was filed against the State of Israel, the Kinneret Cities Association, Gal Amidi Ltd., which operates the Lebanon Beach, where the young man was swimming, Harel Insurance Company, and Magen David Adom Israel.
According to the lawsuit, on Friday, September 11, 2015, the deceased - who was an outstanding student in early childhood education and a security guard at Ben Gurion Airport - and his friends came to spend time camping at 'Lebanon' Beach on the Sea of Galilee. The beach, the lawsuit claims, is a regulated beach with a lifeguard hut and rescue services.
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The next day, the deceased's two friends entered the sea with a mattress, and according to their testimony, at one point, the deceased tried to join them. However, when he reached halfway in the swim, the deceased decided to return to shore and got into trouble.
His friends, who heard his cries, began to swim towards him quickly, while at the same time calling for help.
At this point, lawyers Almog and Klu claim in the lawsuit, a chain of omissions began, which led to the young man's unnecessary death. According to them, the lifeguard, who was in the sukkah at the time, and heard the boy and his friends' cries of distress, decided for some reason to stay in the sukkah, and be content with signaling another lifeguard, who was on a raft in the water at the time.
The lifeguard on the boat approached the area where the deceased was last seen, but since he did not see the exact spot where the deceased drowned, he began searching for his location among the waves.
According to the prosecution, after a search that lasted several minutes, the deceased was located about 10 meters from the shore and was pulled from the water by bathers, unconscious.
At this point, it is claimed, vacationers on the beach began performing CPR, but without a defibrillator, which was not available at all - neither in the lifeguard hut nor on the beach itself - in complete violation of what is required by law.
However, according to attorney Almog and Kello, the series of failures did not end there. According to them, an intensive care ambulance (ICU) arrived at the scene only after 20 critical minutes, during which the deceased could have been saved.
According to them, in retrospect it turned out that the ambulance came from Katzrin. "There is no plausible explanation for the fact that an ambulance did not arrive from the city of Tiberias, but only from Katzrin, which is about a 20-minute drive away. It is clear that the deceased paid with his life for the failure to have an ambulance available in the city and/or that a different priority was given to the ambulance," the lawsuit claims.
According to the lawsuit, the young man was taken to Poriya Hospital while on a ventilator, and two days later, his body systems collapsed and he was pronounced dead.
Attached to the lawsuit was the opinion of Dr. Amir Cohen, a specialist in general surgery and intensive care at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, who determined that the conduct of the rescue teams exceeded reasonable standards, and that the deceased could and should have been given appropriate and rapid treatment in a manner that could, with a high probability, have saved his life.
""This is a situation in which the duration of the drowning could have been shortened by a quick response by the lifeguard in the sukkah and thereby achieved resuscitation earlier," stated Dr. Cohen. According to him, the fact that there was no defibrillator on the beach, as required by law, constituted a significant delay in the lifesaving treatment that the deceased needed.
The claim for compensation in the maximum amount stipulated by law - at least 2.5 million shekels - is currently being heard in the Central District Court in Lod.
A spokesperson for the Kinneret Association of Cities told Ynet: "The lawsuit has not yet reached us. When it does, we will study it and respond in court as is customary. We share in the family's grief.".
