Local paramedic's heroic journey: From an Israeli vacation to life-saving mission amid war

Charles Gros’s vacation in Israel took a dramatic turn when he was asked to use his skills as a paramedic after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks by Eli Beer, founder of United Hatzalah, an Israeli emergency medical services organization.

“I heard a voice over the loudspeakers of the hotel: ‘All guests please move quickly to the fortified stairwells,’” Gros recounted. “I panicked. I ran out in whatever I was wearing and I went to check on my children.”

After ensuring his family’s safety, Gros rode with Beer to a Hatzalah building in Jerusalem, where he was given an assignment, as he has been doing for 28 years in Atlantic Beach.

“The problem was that the (emergency medical technicians) and paramedics had been shot and killed,” Gros said of Israeli rescue workers, sharing his story at a solidarity event at the Atlantic Beach Jewish Center on Oct. 19.

Equipped with a bulletproof vest and helmet, Gros took off in an ambulance with a driver armed with a machine gun and another volunteer, who had previously worked undercover in Gaza for the Israel Defense Forces.

“The 12 hours that we spent together would create a bond that would never leave us,” Gros said.

Their first victim was a rabbi who had been killed as he walked to his synagogue. “I felt terrible at the fact that besides not being able to save him, we had to leave him, leave him on the side of the road,” Gros recalled. “There were others with life-threatening injuries we had to tend to, and I felt that we should at least cover him, so we covered him with a sheet and put some rocks that we found around him and continued, unable to give him the proper respects at his time of death.”

There was a vehicle full of Israeli soldiers who had been killed by a reported 100 terrorists, who also stole the radio equipment and kidnapped the driver and communications person, Gros said.

Gros and his team saw an IDF soldier, 21, die after being shot in the head. The trio attempted to rescue people who had been attacked on the highway, and responded to calls from the music festival that was attacked.

“One of the patients told me that he was at the rave and he saw the terrorists come towards him, and he put up his hands, begging them, ‘Don’t shoot, I have no weapons, don’t shoot me,’” Gros said, “and instead of shooting him, the terrorist smiled and checked his aim by shooting both of the man’s hands off.”

Gros feared the unknown. “Every car we saw, we were in fear,” he said. “We didn’t know who was driving it — we didn’t know if they were going to shoot us.”

Since his return to Atlantic Beach, Gros has remained in contact with United Hatzalah as part of an effort to provide supplies to people in Israel.

At the Atlantic Beach solidarity event, Rabbi Eli Weinstock, of the Jewish Center of Atlantic Beach, and Rabbi Zalman Wolowik, of the Chabad of the Five Towns, commended Gros’s actions, and called on the community to remain united in support of Israel.

“To have allies who are not part of the Jewish community so strongly supporting Israel doesn’t happen automatically,” Weinstock said. “It happens once we come together.”

Former U.S. Rep. Peter King, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Town of Hempstead Councilwoman Melissa Miller and Atlantic Beach Mayor George Pappas all noted their empathy and support for Israel.

Pappas distributed blue light bulbs to attendees for a show of solidarity by the village.

“We thought it’d be appropriate if everybody took a light bulb and screwed it in on their front porch and lit Atlantic Beach blue, so the whole world could see that Atlantic Beach supports Israel,” Pappas said. “We’re here to show everybody in the world that Atlantic Beach cares, and we’re sticking together as a community.”