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“They immediately put me on all these machines and made me sweat,” said Yehonatan Ben Tzur, 24.
Ben Tzur wasn’t receiving personal training at a gym. He was undergoing rehabilitation at the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus following a serious injury to his leg and hand.
He had been on reserve duty with the IDF for almost a year, first fighting in Lebanon and then in Gaza. But it wasn’t in Lebanon or Gaza where he was wounded. It wasn’t even in the Middle East.
Ben Tzur took advantage of a months-long break from reserves and traveled throughout the US with his friend, Adi. Eventually making their way to New Orleans, they embraced the city’s party spirit on New Year’s Eve, until the early hours of the morning.
“We were walking right on the main street, Bourbon Street, and at some point I heard someone shouting,” he said. “I looked ahead and saw a car's headlights, and a second later, I remember I was already in the air.”
Ben Tzur was struck when a pickup truck rammed into crowds of people on Bourbon Street in a terrorist attack that injured dozens of others and killed 14.
Despite being thousands of miles from home, he was not alone. Local Hadassah women came quickly to his bedside in the hospital, including one woman, Ilana, who helped him and Addie with follow-up treatment back in Israel.
At Hadassah hospitals, Ben Tzur was in a wheelchair. But doctors made him work hard, and he began walking again, even before his scheduled surgery.
“The rehabilitation here, at Hadassah, is wonderful. It’s like a hotel — simply a hotel for rehabilitation, this place.”
What’s next for Ben Tzur?
“We’re going to continue the trip,” he said.
“We have a lot of people we need to thank in New Orleans.”
