By: Hellen Zaboulani
Eli Beer, the founder of United Hatzalah, the volunteer emergency medical organization, recently returned home after thankfully recovering from a life-threatening case of coronavirus. While in South Florida on a fundraising trip, Beer fell ill and fought for his life intubated in a medically induced coma for weeks at the University of Miami Medical Center. There, among the team of specialists working selflessly to save him, was his friend Dr. Joel Sandberg, who sits on the board of Hatzalah. Dr. Sandberg, the father of Sheryl Sandberg who serves as Facebooks’s chief operating officer, became Beer’s around-the-clock advocate throughout the ordeal. “I was intimately involved in his entire hospital course,” Sandberg said in an interview with Jewish Insider.
Sandberg says he jumped up to help the hero when he came to the hospital, on the Tuesday following the Jewish holiday of Purim. “It was just natural for me to be his medical advocate,” said Sandberg, a physician and voluntary professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami Medical Center. Even though Dr. Sandberg could not be physically present at the hospital, he was in continuous contact with the medical workers treating Beer. He analyzed lab data and relayed the information from several doctors to Beer’s wife three times a day. He also sent out an update on Beer’s standing once or twice a day to the Hatzalah team, as he told the Jewish Insider. “Basically, I was doing this full-time,” Sandberg said. “It was my pleasure and honor to do it,” Sandberg added. “I mean, I love Eli — and he’s saving lives all the time.”
Beer, 46, had met Sandberg years ago by chance on a plane from Miami to New York. Sandberg found out that Beer was the founder of Hatzalah, and mentioned that he had donated to the nonprofit. The two agreed to meet for breakfast the next day, and Sandberg and his wife, Adele, committed to increasing their participation in the organization. The couple donated an ambulance and ambucycle.
Beer, who is still recuperating, did not confirm the details or comment but in a previous email to JI, he had said he was touched by the couple’s belief in his organization. “United Hatzalah is my passion since I’m 16, and now their passion as well,” Beer said.
During Beer’s time in the hospital unconscious, Sandberg made it his mission to make it known to everyone who worked at the hospital who Beer was, and his character. “I told everyone who he was and that we wanted to do everything possible,” said Sandberg. “I would email them his Wikipedia page and tell them to look up his TED Talk. And when I was on the phone, I would just tell them about Eli.”
Sandberg was there for Beer throughout the five weeks that he stayed in the University of Miami Medical Center. It was also Sandberg who had suggested that the doctors try the experimental stem cell treatment. Beer became the first patient in Miami to be injected with the treatment. Beer recovered soon after the stem cell injection, though Sandberg said no one can know for sure if it was that therapy that brought about his recovery.
“Joel was Eli’s guardian angel every step of the way,” said Mark Gerson, the chairman of United Hatzalah, saying that Sandberg “quarterbacked” the operation to save Beer’s life. “He just never stopped,” agreed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, another member of the board of United Hatzalah. “He’s not the youngest man in the world. And it was as if he was a 30-year-old new doctor. I mean, he just wouldn’t stop. He was like the Energizer Bunny. He just went on and on and on. He has accumulated more mitzvahs than anybody needs to get into heaven.”
