An Israeli soldier has miraculously lived to tell how she was shot 12 times by Hamas on Oct. 7 and lay motionless among her dead friends “waiting for the final bullet.”
Israel Defense Forces First Lt. Eden Ram — who is already up and walking again — described in an emotional online post how she was stationed at the Urim Southern District Base with 12 other soldiers when they were ambushed by the terrorists, with the gunmen shooting Ram in the leg just as she reached the base’s Operations Room.
Trapped in the room, the injured soldier and six fellow service members could do nothing but wait until Hamas blew through every security door until they finally reached the IDF troops, unleashing a volley of gunfire on them, she recalled.
“Throughout this, I was not sure if I was dead or alive,” Ram wrote on October7.org about the moment 12 bullets struck her body.
“I felt dead, but I could still see and hear and feel. I waited for the final bullet that would hit and kill me, but it never came,” she said.
Despite resigning herself to death — with Ram even sending goodbye messages to loved ones before Hamas breached the doors — she found herself alive even after being riddled with bulletse and played dead for four hours as the terrorists checked on the bodies.
She said that as she lay in a pool of her own blood surrounded by dead friends and colleagues, she felt the breath of her friend, Sahar, who also survived the attack.
Once the coast was clear, Sahar immediately helped treat Ram, who had bullet wounds across her legs, left arm and shoulder.
“I was in so much pain that I couldn’t say a word — angels came to save me,” Ram said of the moment more soldiers and first responders arrived at the base.
“They took me to Soroka hospital [in Beer Sheba], and on the way, I immediately asked to call my family and tell them that I was alive against all odds!”
The first 48 hours in the hospital were grueling as she received two life-saving operations, with doctors putting her on ventilation for the next three days while keeping her heavily sedated.
Despite the damage to her body, Ram said, she should be able to regain full function of her limbs.
Ram has sped through her rehabilitation, and last week, she received an award from Israel President Isaac Herzog for her valor Oct. 7.
During the ceremony, she said that she was ecstatic to be back on her feet, describing her recovery as nothing short of a miracle.
“The difficult moments will accompany me forever,” she said. “I had hard thoughts about whether I was even alive and if I would be able to hold on, but then a miracle called me.”