The 370th Night of Memories – 5

Compiled by: Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2025-10-1

Note: The 370th Night of Memories program was held on July 23, 2025, with the theme “Muharram at the Front” at the Sura Hall of the Art Center. In this program, Reza Afsharnezhad, Seyyed Saleh Mousavi, and Ramin Asgari shared their memories. The event was hosted by Davood Salehi.

The third narrator of the program, Ramin Asghari, was born in June 1993; from a generation that was born five years after the end of the imposed war. The host, while introducing him, referred to how he joined the Red Crescent and said: he, who was active in cultural and social activities as a teenager, one day during the sea purification plan, met the head of the Red Crescent Society of their city. He told him about his desire to wear the service uniform. This very interest led him, after a training period, to join the Red Crescent Society as a relief worker and rescuer. His serious involvement began exactly one day after his 32nd birthday and with the start of the 12-day war.

The narrator began his words as follows: I am not a speaker, and I have learned to always be an operational force. As one of my friends says, we grew up on the road and in operations, and we are proud to have taken this path.

The night the attack began, I was on shift at the base. Our 48-hour shift was supposed to end, and we were to return home. It was around 3:45 a.m., and all my friends were asleep when the Red Crescent Operations Control Center called the base. They told us that the Zionist regime had attacked and that we must immediately go to a residential area in the Chitgar district.

We were the first rescue team from Tehran province to be dispatched to the incident site. When we arrived, thick smoke and dust had filled everywhere. After passing several obstacles, I asked, “Where did they hit?” We could not see anything. One of those present pointed and said, “They have leveled those six rows of apartments with the ground.” We immediately contacted the search and rescue dog team (ANSET) to come to the area. Simultaneously with their search, we began debris removal, but unfortunately, no one emerged alive from the rubble, and the only thing we found were the bodies of the martyrs.

The narrator continued: After about two and a half hours, we were ordered, along with four other teams, to go to another area. When we arrived, we saw that the situation there was worse than in Chitgar. In the basement level (-3) of a building, we started debris removal and reached an injured person named “Seyed Mehdi.” His condition was very bad. The first thing I did was put my own helmet, which I always carry during operations, on his head, and we connected him to oxygen so that the smoke and dust would bother him less.

It was around 7 a.m. when, while working, another explosion occurred a few meters away from us, and the debris fell on us again. I said, “God, I do not mind if it is me, just let nothing happen to my team members.” God had mercy, and after a ray of light appeared, I sent the team outside. Later, they showed me a video of that moment in which the blast wave had hit me and I was screaming. That explosion caused my injuries and damaged both my lungs and my throat.

Perhaps my bitterest memory is related to our base’s search dog, “Jiro.” He was an eight-month-old dog still in training and was present at a real incident for the first time. While searching in one area, Jiro began barking. When we dug that spot with a small shovel, unfortunately, we encountered the wrist of a three-year-old child. That day, it felt as if the world had collapsed on my head. Collecting pieces of a child’s body and placing them in a bag was extremely painful.

In this war, we lost two of our best friends and colleagues: Seyed Mojtaba Maleki and Amir Hassan Jamshidpour. They were in the Doukheh area, riding in an ambulance that was targeted. Seyed Mojtaba was martyred beside the ambulance, and about a hundred meters away, Amir Hassan, who had gone above an injured woman with a first-aid bag, was martyred. We were about five hundred meters away from them and could see a Hermes drone hovering above us.

The narrator continued: Despite all these bitter moments, there were also beautiful scenes. In one area, I was feeling very unwell and working with an oxygen mask. An elderly man and woman came over and, insisting, gave me a glass of water. Then the old woman kissed my forehead, and the old man wanted to kiss my hand, which I did not allow. They said, “You are working hard for us. We truly have good people.”

In conclusion, I must say, they say that at the peak of an incident, everyone flees from it; but we and my colleagues in the emergency and fire departments go into the heart of the incident. I realized this when rockets were hitting Tehran, and we were providing relief. We have chosen this uniform with our hearts and serve the people with all our being.

The End