Chaim Rafalowski, Magen David Adom’s (MDA) disaster management coordinator, gives a presentation at the recent International Conference for Victims Assistance in Paris. Photo: Courtesy of MDA.

JNS.org – Amid the rise in global terror attacks, countries around the world are turning to Magen David Adom (MDA) — Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster relief, ambulance and blood services organization — to learn from its method of shortening emergency-response times.

Chaim Rafalowski, MDA’s disaster management coordinator, recently presented the organization’s method of integrating Israeli volunteers into its emergency-response system at the first International Conference for Victims Assistance, held in Paris and sponsored by the United Nations cultural body UNESCO.

Representatives from Germany, Belgium, Canada, Israel, the UK, the US and other countries attended the Paris conference.

MDA provides medical equipment to trained volunteers who serve on standby basis and are summoned to nearby scenes of emergencies when need. Anyone with basic medical training can become a volunteer MDA “life guardian” emergency responder. MDA’s command and control dispatches EMTs, paramedics and life guardians based on their proximity to any particular incident, reducing emergency-response times.

The Israeli organization’s presentation at the Jan. 9 Paris conference came a day after the deadly Palestinian truck-ramming terror attack in Jerusalem, an attack that mirrored recent truck-rammings carried out by Islamic State in Nice and Berlin.