Lifesaving Heroics

Prof. Israel Meizner with Limor Agamy and her son

Professor Israel Meizner, head of the Ultrasound Unit at Rabin Medical Center's Hospital for Women, has performed thousands of ultrasounds and invasive procedures on pregnant women throughout his long career, but nothing like the extraordinary ultrasound of Limor Agamy. In her twentieth week of pregnancy, a huge cyst was observed in the right fetal lung and doctors attempted to alleviate this problem using pleuro-amniotic shunting to drain the fluids. During this procedure, Prof. Meizner discovered that the fetal pleural cavity had filled with blood, the heart was compressed to the side, and there was only a faint heartbeat. It was obvious that the fetus was dying.

Without a second thought, Prof. Meizner performed a lifesaving procedure by placing a needle straight into the fetal thorax and pumping out the blood that had accumulated. As he carried out this very delicate and dangerous procedure, the fetus's lungs expanded and a normal heartbeat was restored, saving the unborn baby's life. In her thirty-eighth week of pregnancy, Limor gave birth to a beautiful healthy son. Her joy was indescribable.

Related Articles

My Love of Shoes Helped Me Fight Breast Cancer


Barbara Abrams is a two-time survivor of breast cancer, an Ashkenazi Jew and BRCA positive. Every woman in her family, who has been BRCA tested, has the gene and has been affected by cancer in some way. Her grandmother, aunt and cousin did not survive the illness.


read more »

Not Parkinson's at All


A common phenomenon among the elderly is sudden falls, the recurrence of which is often diagnosed by many physicians as the beginning of Parkinson's disease.


read more »

60-year-old becomes first-time mother after receiving fertility treatments


The woman and her husband, an ultra-Orthodox couple living in the central Israel community of Kfar Khabad, were married over 40 years ago, and have been trying to have a child for nearly four decades.


read more »