Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Everyday Heroes: She takes song requests — from the back of the ambulance

The Forward asked readers to tell us about the “everyday heroes” in their lives, people extraordinary things in this extraordinary time. If you know someone acting heroically right now, let us know — we’ll be adding to the collection in the coming days.

Name: Goldy Landau

What she’s doing: In late March, Goldy Landau drove a recovering coronavirus patient home from a New York City hospital. Since he’d been unable to charge his phone or contact his family for days, his arrival was a welcome surprise. “I’ve never seen a family so thrilled and ecstatic,” Landau wrote on Facebook.

Moments like this are bright spots in Landau’s increasingly grueling workdays. An EMT since 2013 (she’s also written for the Forward), she’s no stranger to difficult assignments, but the coronavirus pandemic poses entirely new challenges, from the cumbersome protective gear in which she greets patients to the sheer physical exertion of lifting sick bodies in and out of the ambulance each shift. Landau’s pants are stained with bleach from sterilizing her vehicle between each call, and even her most basic routines have been interrupted: while first responders normally grab corner store sandwiches during lulls in their shifts, since most New York eateries have closed, she’s reliant on donated food and free coffee provided to healthcare workers by Starbucks. “We live on coffee,” she said.

What she’s saying: Between shifts, Landau posts regular updates about her work on Facebook. She captures the fears of families who must send a loved one to the hospital alone, dispenses advice on what to pack if a trip to the hospital is unavoidable (cozy socks are a must), and cracks jokes about her “Patients” playlist, a collection of songs that stable patients request her to play during transports.

While Landau’s work may seem incomprehensibly difficult to many, she said she’s most frightened of the prospect of self-quarantining at home. “That to me seems way more stressful,” she said, speaking by phone from the back of her ambulance. “Having to be home alone for months? I’d rather lift 100 patients a day.”

Inspired? Read about more everyday heroes here.

Irene Connelly is an editorial fellow at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.