Meet Hilik Magnus, Israel’s top search and rescue expert

Few jobs have as high stakes as that of Yehiel Magnus. Magnus, who goes by Hilik, is faced with life and death decisions every day as the head of Magnus International Search and Rescue.

For the past 25 years, Magnus and his 15 person rescue team have run thousands of critical rescue operations all around the world. They’ve conducted field rescues and complex medical evacuations and retrieved missing persons and kidnapping victims.

At 69 years old, Magnus shows no signs of slowing down. In this video, he tells us about his demanding job, and some of the biggest rescue missions he’s been a part of, like helping evacuate the Israeli victims of the giant tsunami that hit South East Asia in 2004.

While Magnus says that 99.9% of the rescue cases he handles are brought back alive, his team also helps retrieve the bodies of victims of terror and tragedy around the world. Most notably, Magnus tells us about how he personally pulled out the body of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, one of the victims of the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai’s Chabad house.

Watch his story above.