When Angels Arrived: How I Found Lifesaving Help in the ER

It was a freezing night and I was deathly ill. I am a single woman and I was all alone. There was no one to help me. I knew I needed to get to the hospital immediately. At 4 a.m., I called Church Car Service in Boro Park and asked the driver to take me to Mt. Sinai Hospital Hospital on the Upper East Side. We arrived just as the dawn was breaking over Manhattan. I walked into the emergency room and told the triage nurse I needed help. She put a band on my wrist and sent me into the emergency room.

The emergency room was filled with hundreds of patients. I was a tiny non-entity in a ward of suffering humanity. It would be a miracle if anyone paid attention to me. After about two hours of lying on an anonymous hospital bed, I looked up and saw what seemed like a magical apparition. It was a lovely tall woman dressed in a flowing dress with a loving smile.

She approached me and said, “Hi! Are you Chava?”
“Yes,” I said.
“My name is Sima Bachrach and I work for Chesed 24/7. I am here to help you.”
I could not believe that this angel had come.

I found out later that my friend, Rebbezin Marsha Weinberg, had called all the Bikur Cholims in New York to try to find someone who would come to Mt Sinai Hospital to help me. She finally found Chessed 24/7 who told her they had a representative to help patients in the Mt Sinai Hospital ER. Sima Bachrach asked me some questions, and then spoke to the doctors on the floor. Thanks to her intervention, they immediately sent me to get a CAT scan. The CAT scan showed that I needed immediate surgery. The doctors in the emergency room told me that all the operating rooms were taken, and that I would have to wait at least a day or two for the surgery. This would definitely endanger my life as I had not been able to eat or drink for almost a week.

Sima Bachrach left, and came back a little later with another woman who introduced herself as Dr. Sharon Zissman. Dr Zissman is a surgeon at Mt Sinai Hospital. She told me that Sima had called her, and she immediately came to the ER to help me. She had already examined my CAT scan and scheduled the surgery immediately. She miraculously scheduled an operating room for the surgery even though the staff had told me there were no OR’s available. I found out later that my friend, Rebbezin Marsha Weinberg, had called all the Bikur Cholims in New York to try to find someone who would come to Mt Sinai Hospital to help me. She finally found Chessed 24/7 who told her they had a representative to help patients in the Mt Sinai Hospital ER.

Sima Bachrach asked me some questions, and then spoke to the doctors on the floor. Thanks to her intervention, they immediately sent me to get a CAT scan. The CAT scan showed that I needed immediate surgery. The doctors in the emergency room told me that all the operating rooms were taken, and that I would have to wait at least a day or two for the surgery. This would definitely endanger my life as I had not been able to eat or drink for almost a week.

Sima Bachrach left, and came back a little later with another woman who introduced herself as Dr. Sharon Zissman. Dr Zissman is a surgeon at Mt Sinai Hospital. She told me that Sima had called her, and she immediately came to the ER to help me. She had already examined my CAT scan and scheduled the surgery immediately. She miraculously scheduled an operating room for the surgery even though the staff had told me there were no OR’s available.

An hour later, Dr Zissman’s operating team assembled around me and wheeled me to the OR. They performed a successful operation and saved my life. I am eternally grateful with all my heart and soul to Rebbetzin Marsha Weinberg who called Chessed 24/7, to the Chesed 24/7 staff, to Mrs Sima Bachrach and to Dr. Sharon Zissman for saving my life. And of course, to Hashem for having orchestrated this miracle. May Hashem bless everyone involved in this organization with great blessings of good health and tremendous brachos always. Chava S.