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Hartford Hospital Doctor Receives Citizen Award From Police Department

September 26, 2022

Avital Porat, MD, medical director of quality and safety at Hartford Hospital, was recognized Thursday by the West Hartford Police Department at an awards ceremony, where other citizens and officers were commended for their actions.

Town Manager Richard Ledwith said he was honored to be able to recognize citizens who saw something, said something, and did something to help in their community.

“I was very honored, it is what I do, who I am,” Dr. Porat said of the recognition.

She received the award because of her actions last winter, when she encountered a woman in a car who was feeling faint.

The woman was semi-conscious, weak, pale and initially confused. The woman’s adult daughter had pulled into the parking lot at Veterans Memorial Skating Rink, and was asking for help. Dr. Porat was going in to the skating rink with her three young children when she saw them.

She told her kids to go ahead into the rink, while she spoke to the woman and her daughter. She estimated the woman was in her 70s. She checked her pulse and spoke with her about her medical history. She said she thought she had syncope, or a fainting spell.

“I stayed with her until police and EMTs arrived, talking with her, helping her stay calm, but I really didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Dr. Porat said. “My kids were a little nervous, asking what happened.”

She said she was an EMT in college and worked for EMS for about seven years before going back to medical school to become a doctor, so this incident brought her back to her roots. She has been in the emergency medicine department at Hartford Hospital for eight years.