Air Ambulance Ukraine
28 March 2024
Not long after the war in Ukraine broke out, members of the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity headed for Ukraine to provide vital medical training. Peter Reeve, Air Operations Officer and Specialist Paramedic describes what it was like and why they’ve been back.
The Great Western Air Ambulance service broadly covers a region from Bristol in the east to Wiltshire in the west, including large areas of Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire. So how did a trip to Ukraine come across their radar?
Peter Reeve, Air Operations Officer and Specialist Paramedic Critical Care, explains it was a highly unusual request. “Like every Air Ambulance service in the UK, we are a charity, 100% funded by donors and manned by medical professionals from the NHS. When the war in Ukraine broke out, we were asked if we would be prepared to get involved with a mission to rescue seriously ill children who needed emergency evacuation. Obviously, this is a war zone, so we weren’t proposing to fly in. Our role was to use our expertise to provide medical support in a mobile context.
Vital first aid training in a war zone
“After that mission, we were asked if anyone would be prepared to go into Kyiv to provide specialist first aid training for Embassy employees, showing them what to do in the event of an air strike.
“Lots of my colleagues were really eager to make a difference, and we quickly assembled a team of three doctors and three paramedics to make a trip in June 2022, about four months after the initial invasion. It’s an epic journey. You have to fly into Warsaw and then drive to Kyiv, which would be around 12 hours without the air raid sirens, military checkpoints and night-time curfews.
“It was quite a scary experience. A missile strike the night before we arrived put us all on edge, but the incredible stoicism and bravery of our hosts soon settled us down.
“The training was all about how to apply first aid in a war context. We’re used to providing training in the UK, but our focus here was to help people understand what to do if a bomb goes off or a building collapses. How do you stop bleeds? What’s the best way to prioritise who needs urgent help? How can you keep people alive until medical professionals arrive on the scene?
Working with frontline medics
“We were then invited back again, but this time the brief was to work with frontline medics seconded to the military police, secret service and combat regiments.
“This was February 2023, eight months after the previous visit, and the contrast in Kyiv was notable. People largely ignored air raid sirens and were doing their best to live more normal lives. In Lviv, we ate out at a restaurant, with musicians playing in the street.
“This time, air defences were much more sophisticated and social media played a critical role. When sirens indicated a missile launch, there was typically 20 minutes before impact. In that time, the targeting would be shared on Twitter, so you knew if it was heading your way. In the event, Ukraine’s defence systems would take out many incoming missiles before they reached their targets.
“During these sessions in Kyiv and Odesa, we were talking to medics like us, so this was a much higher level of training around how to deliver life-saving care with limited equipment, in frontline situations; for example, stemming massive blood loss with whatever is to hand; making an emergency airway using a scalpel. All of us found these trips really rewarding. It’s great to have a skillset you can use to make a difference in an unjust situation like this. We’re grateful for our donor who instigated and funded this work and all of our donors who make our day-to-day emergency service possible here in the UK.”
Flexible insurance is key
On the role Bellwood Prestbury played, Peter Reeve tells us: “We couldn’t have made these trips without Personal Accident insurance, and it was incredibly difficult to organise. Bellwood Prestbury made it straightforward.
“For the second trip, the dates and locations were changing almost hourly, because we were trying to dovetail with the rotation of medics over there.
"Rob at Bellwood Prestbury reassured us that they would adapt cover as and when we knew the details, so we could commit and go at a moment’s notice. That level of flexibility was actually one of the key factors that made the whole thing possible.”
If you would like to make a donation to keep the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity operational 24/7, visit: www.committedgiving.uk.net/GWAA/donate/
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