On Saturday morning, Liran Cohen, a resident of Holon, Israel tried to leave his apartment to go to synagogue but could not open his door to leave his home. So he decided to call the Holon Fire Department who responded by dispatching a team of firefighters to the scene reports Forum Holon.

The firefighters assessed the situation and broke down the Cohen family’s door using the tools at their disposal. Upon entering the living room, they noticed a massive crack and immediately realized that the building as a whole was in a dire state.

Shortly thereafter, similar complaints were received by other residents of the same apartment building who also had difficulty opening the doors to their homes.

The firefighters that were called to the scene reported the incidents to their Captain Yoni Butzkovsky. Butzkovsky decided to order the immediate evacuation of all residents from the building.

“We saw that the structure was changing form so we decided to evacuate everyone,” he said.

Only thirty-two hours after Butzkovsky’s decision to evacuate, the entire building collapsed to its foundation.

And so, sixteen lives were saved, all because one man wanted nothing more than to go to synagogue to pray on the Sabbath.