October 2022 Update
________________________________________
October 28, 2022
Family of four. The father is partially paralyzed.
It took almost a month to coordinate this run.
We are not able to cross to Poland for now, so we brought them to the border, and they crossed it on foot. Ruslan was going to Poland to pick up humanitarian aid, so he helped them in the crossing. On the other side, another volunteer team was waiting for them with the vehicle to take them to Warsaw.
________________________________________
October 25, 2022
First, it was BOOM, the floor rambled, then we lost water, and now there is no electricity as well.
________________________________________
October 23, 2022
Another evacuation is completed. We picked up a family of two and a small dog from the refugee camp to bring them to the border crossing. This was a pretty uneventful ride, except that we had to take a different than usual route to avoid driving near the powerplant that is now a frequent target of the ruZZian’s missile strikes. We dropped our passengers at the border crossing and RFU volunteers (many thanks to @yana) waited for them to help on the Poland side.
On the way back we were planning to have breakfast on the road at a gas station, but it was another air raid, and everything was closed. So, breakfast happened around 8:00 pm.
The countryside near the camp is beautiful and reminds me of New Hampshire. @Rus stopped near one of the houses so we could take a picture of the gorgeous horse and a colt.
________________________________________
October 22, 2022
Supplies report.
Shipped 09-17:
10 boxes to Lviv (total weight 248 lbs)
7 boxes to Odessa (total weight 211 lbs)
Total shipment cost $1487.65
https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalrelief2022/posts/1331898734007668
Shipment 1. Lviv-Kharkiv. Delivered by Aleks Medic, Rusl Zin and PROJECT MONKEY JUMP to Kharkiv volunteers and distributed to hospitals and Maternity Center, 10-13-2022
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159210819809499&set=pcb.1282965075847404
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=169028632447453&set=pcb.1285242365619675
Shipment 2. 7 boxes (tacmed and hospital supplies) were delivered to Odessa, for “Flogiston” SRC, 10-15-2022, Леся Доброскоченко-Оводовська
Shipped 09-22
5 boxes (total weight 105 lbs) containing surgical supplies, tracheostomy, colostomy, urology, pediatric, and wound vacs.
Shipment cost $298.4
https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalrelief2022/posts/1337077303489811/
Delivered to Lviv. 4 of them will be passed to Ukrainian medics on Monday, the 5th with wound vacs supplies sent to the Military Medical Clinical Center of the Central Region of Vinnytsia.
Shipped 10-20
6 boxes (total weight 102 lbs) One box - to Lviv, Алексей Бобин, cold weather supplies for frontline; 5 boxes - special hardware for intensive phototherapy in NICU to Kyiv, in cooperation with "Little Sparrows Technologies," Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Association of Neonatologists of Ukraine
Shipping cost $410.58.
________________________________________
October 18, 2022
Sometimes ...it happens.
On Saturday, 10/15/22, we left for Kyiv. We had some stuff that needs to be done there on Sunday. Monday morning we were supposed to depart on the mission to Kryvyi Rih. In case something would not work out we had a backup mission for Zaporizhzhia.
Everything went smoothly on Sunday.
Monday morning, we woke up, called, and confirmed our plans for Kryvyi Rih, Rusl Zin found and booked a hotel, we had breakfast, packed our staff, and we were about to depart. At this point, we got a call that this run was canceled.
OK. Change of plans. Good that we have a backup. Called Zaporizhzhia. They said: “We had some changes. Give us a couple of hours.” In two hours, we were told this mission is canceled too. So, at this point, we had no choice but to return to base.
On the way back our “New To Us” ambulance reached the milestone of 240,000 miles. Also, after a bump on the road our radio, which was not working from day one, suddenly decided to join us on the ride. We turned it to the “Radio “Bayraktar” – the Music of Ukrainian Victory” and got to base at about 11 p.m.
The only good thing about it – they did not cancel on arrival. We would waste much more time and precious diesel fuel.
________________________________________
October 15, 2022
Another mission ended successfully yesterday. We returned to the base, as usual, after the sun had already set below the horizon. It was a very important mission - a batch of valuable medicine for one of the Kharkiv hospitals and the transportation of Mr. Mykola, who suffered very severe consequences from a stroke. Complete paralysis of the right side. It took away the speech too. A person will not be able to take care of himself at all...
________________________________________
October 12, 2022
The ambulance was restocked; supplies were loaded. Tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. we are leaving for Kharkiv. Will be back to base (hopefully) in a couple of days. Wish us luck!
________________________________________
October 10, 2022
First and most important: WE ARE OK!
Yesterday we went to Ivano-Frankivsk. By our Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) we should have at least two days between the runs, and this was the second time in a row we broke our own rules. We had one day off before the previous mission and about fifteen hours before this one. But sometimes rules need to be bent. The patient was bound for Spain, and we had to intercept the Polish crew who took her to Poland, and they would intercept the Spain crew for the last leg of the trip. This kind of logistics is an absolute nightmare so you do what you have to do.
We arrived during the air raid alarm, so we have to wait until it is over to check in at the hotel. After it was done, we went for “breakfast” – it was already almost 8.00 p.m.
Got up at five o’clock and went for pickup. The patient has an advanced MS and is not able to maintain a seating position at all plus a broken right foot in the cast.
We left Ivano-Frankivsk around 7:20 and got to the rally point with the Polish crew around 11:15. I was staying with the patient and Ruslan demonstrated superb driving skills. Despite the road condition, the ride was very smooth.
On the road, we found out it was a major air strike on Ukraine by RuZZians. We saw people taking shelter and on approach to Lviv noticed smoke.
We transferred our patient, exchange contact information with our Polish colleagues for future cooperation, and very tired went back to base.
This is where we found out that Lady Luck is still on our side. After we left Ivano-Frankivsk, there were several hits in the area where we spent the night and pick up the patient, it was several explosions in places on our route but all after or before we passed.
When we reached the base the electricity and water were off in the whole region. But whatever. We were so tired so immediately went to bed. The cell phone was barely working, but before I fell asleep, I send a message to my wife, Yulia that we are OK and checked on my daughter, Maria Smirnov who is currently in Lviv. She was OK but did not have a power too.
Despite the current escalation we are not planning to halt our operation. Now we are needed here even more.
Alexaner Smirnov
________________________________________
October 8, 2022
Yesterday was spent on getting “Nika” ready for the mission. I slept for three hours and at six o’clock we were on the road again. At this hour, the fog was very heavy. You can’t see more than a hundred feet, so driving was difficult. We got to the refugee camp around 11:15. Our passengers were already waiting for us. It was a family of three – husband, wife, one wheelchair-bound elderly woman, and a dog. We load them in the ambulance. Because it was a “short ride” by our standards (only five and half hours) Ruslan Zinchenko was driving all the way, and I stayed in the treatment compartment all the time. Around six o’clock we brought them to their destination in Lviv. On the way back to base we stopped for “breakfast” approximately at 7 p.m.
By our protocol, we are supposed to have at least two days break between the missions. Especially after the long one like our previous run. But we thought: “It is going to be the short one and we will get some rest after it.” And … OOOPS! It is almost midnight, and we just found out we will have to go for another one tomorrow. Fortunately, that will be a short run too. We need to leave in the second part of the day so, tonight we are going to get some sleep!
Alexander Smirnov
________________________________________
October 7, 2022
Last weekend we picked up boxes with the medical supplies that were sent by GDRT in Lviv, got up at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, 10/4/2022, and at 6 a.m. leave the base going to Zaporizhya. No ambulance patients were scheduled for us, so we decided to go on Juna. We arrived around 10 p.m. and checked into a small hotel.
The next day we delivered the boxes with medical supplies to the local hospital, meet with a medical officer whom I knew from my previous deployment and give him some medical supplies for the frontline. Also, we were talking with the local volunteers to find a passenger for our ride back. It turns out the ruZZians are not letting people out. They closed the humanitarian corridor (after destroying the refugee convoy). May be 20 cars per day pass through, but no buses, passenger vans, or pedestrians are allowed to leave.
Yes, supplies were delivered, and it should have been enough, but we did not want to go back empty. Very late in the evening local volunteers finally confirmed they had a family that needed to go to the Lviv region. We gladly agreed to pick them up at 6:30, set out an alarm for 5:15 a.m., and went to bed.
At 5:10 it was a series of very loud explosions. Our house was shaking. It was no more than 1.5 km from us. The Russians were bombing the city with rockets.
We got up, had our coffee, and went to pick up our passengers. It was a mother with two small kids, I think the oldest one was seven and his brother is four. We loaded their staff in the van and started on our way to Lviv. On the way out of the city, we had to take a detour because the streets were closed due to the emergency crews working at the explosion sites. It was a lot of smoke in the air. Residential houses were destroyed with no military targets in proximity.
On the way back we had to take some back roads again. They were in such bad shape we were not able to go more than 5 km/h (~ 3 m/h). We saw the semi-trailer that almost got stranded in one of the very deep potholes.
We finally arrived at our destination around 10 p.m., said goodbye to our passenger, and returned to base at half past eleven.
We spent the whole day today preparing our Nika ambulance for tomorrow. Tomorrow early morning we are leaving for another run.
