By Jonah Lowenfield

www.thejewishjournal.com

In March 2011, Hatzolah of Los Angeles, the Orthodox Jewish volunteer emergency response corps, celebrated its 10th anniversary in this city. The celebratory dinner offered a chance for the group to thank some of its supporters, and the hundreds who attended — including elected officials and high-ranking civil servants — heard stories of Hatzolah volunteers saving lives, in part by arriving on the scenes of emergencies within minutes of being called.

The principal honoree that evening was California Highway Patrol (CHP) Commissioner Joseph A. Farrow. The state agency had given Hatzolah a permit to operate the lights and sirens on its vehicles when responding to emergencies, a practice known as responding “Code 3.”

Left unmentioned that evening was the fact that Hatzolah lacked any authorization from the City of Los Angeles to operate its ambulances, or to respond Code 3. Three times in the three years leading up to that public event, the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) had informed the group, in writing, that its basic model violated two separate sections of L.A. County law.

Absent those permits, Hatzolah never stopped working, responding to emergency calls and, in some cases, acting as liaison between members of the Jewish community and mostly non-Jewish first responders. Last summer, the group helped rescue two individuals — in one instance working with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies to find a person just minutes before what would have almost certainly been a successful suicide.

But starting in 2011, and for more than a full year, all of Hatzolah’s vehicles were off the streets; two years after the celebration, its three fully equipped ambulances still sit idle.

Its approximately 80 EMTs still respond to emergencies — mostly using their own, private cars and obeying traffic signals even when en route to an emergency, but occasionally using one of Hatzalah’s four SUVs with the lights and sirens running. But no matter what they’re driving, the EMTs are operating in a manner whose legality is uncertain.

“The current status is ‘hot potato,’ ” Hatzolah spokesman David Bacall said of his organization. “That’s the best way that I can describe it.”

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Lights out and sirens off for Hatzolah? | Los Angeles | Jewish Journal.