DAMOJO Spotlight: Hatzalah Air - Captain Elie Rowe

We're here tonight in Deal, New Jersey for the annual event for Hatalah, a very important organization saving lives in the Jewish world. I'm here today, tonight actually with the founder of Hatal Air, Mr. Ellie Row, >> Captain Elliot, >> Captain Elliot, doing real amazing work for all of Israel. Now, I have to tell you, he combined his passion for helping people and being a paramedic along with his passion for aviation. Give me a little bit about that. Howala Air was formed five, six years ago and what has has accomplished since then. So, uh, Joey, first of all, it's it's such a incredible zak to be here tonight. But what's amazing is that in the late 1960s, one guy with one dream after he witnessed somebody die said, "Never again. I'm not going to let it happen." So, he went out and bought one oxygen tank. And then from there, he said, "What good is it if I have one tank? Let me create a little organization." Now, I was kind of like that guy. I was a paramedic and a pilot. And people would call me and say, "My kid's sick. Somebody drowned. car turned over, somebody got burnt, somebody needs a doctor, and I would do it. And then I said, I'm just one guy. Let's start an organization. So, we started in September of 2019 with one aircraft, and we had about one flight request every 3 to 4 weeks. Today, we have 13 aircraft. We get over 30 flight requests a week. Today, I landed not 3 hours ago with an 11 day old baby on a ventilator that came from Larnica. Every single day we do rescues around the world and we're just you cannot imagine how we take people in their absolute darkest worst moments and we save them whatever needs to be done. >> How do you determine I mean you probably are overwhelmed with all types of calls. How do you figure out how do you prioritize in order of importance? >> You know it's a great question. We have a a team of about a dozen doctors in all different specialties and we do a quick underwriting process. If it's a cardiac issue, we have a cardiologist volunteer doctor. If it's a trauma, we'll do it. If it's a true medical emergency, they're flown it free. We don't bother with the underwriting. We just launch and we go. In Israel, we run 100% of the medevac for the state of Israel. That's civilian medevac in conjunction with mandom. And a little known fact is that air is completely independent just like flapish hatal is completely independent and dealatal is completely independent. We don't get money from any other hatalas in the world. We're not supported by any other hatalas. They're amazing. So we ask everybody support your local hatalah. Deal hatal is incredible. They call us for flights. Support your local and flatbush. They're amazing. And then know that god forbid when hatalaha needs hatalah who do they call. >> Very good. How much is an average flight for? People don't realize they're paying a commercial flight. You know 500,000 $2,000. How much is it to transport one patient from let's say Florida or the Midwest to New York? >> So Caribbean or something like that. >> First you have to understand that every single flight request is typically three flights, right? Let's say somebody needs a heart transplant and he's in Chicago and he has to go to California. So we'll fly from wherever we are, New York to St. Louis, St. Louis to LA and then LA back. It's three flights. Each flight costs us our cost on the engine programs and the fuel and the maintenance is thousands of dollars an hour. It could be four, five, 6,000 an hour is our cost. So you do the math. If you do 13 hours of flying at 5,000 an hour, that's $65,000. That's a lot of money. >> But we do it and we do it for free for all emergencies. And all we're doing is asking the community, partner with us and help us help us help you. I know firsthand many cases that Hatalah has referred to Hat Salah Air as well as other organizations and they really do amazing work. Ellie, I wish you well tonight. God bless and I hope a lot of money and you should never need Hat Salah Air, but in the case that you do, you need to know that Ellie Row and his team are here for you. >> It's not just me. It's 400 plus incredible dedicated doctors, case managers, social workers, you name them. Paramedics, pilots, they're just amazing. They're here to help you for free 24 hours a day. Keep up the amazing work.