‘Two Men Down’: For Ukrainian Medics, It Was Time to Transfer

To save lots of lives, Ukrainian fight medics should keep alive.

So, deep inside a place that troopers name “the black forest” in jap Ukraine, the medical corps of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade tries to stay hidden. The zero line — the place Russian and Ukrainian forces are squared off in trench strains close by of one another — is barely a mile or two away.

The enduring purple cross painted on the aspect of the crew’s armored automobile presents little safety from enemy hearth. In truth, troopers say, it makes them a goal. They rigorously camouflage the automobile till it’s wanted — which is commonly nowadays as Russian forces mount wave after wave of assaults.

The automobile is on the fight medic station, a crucial hyperlink within the chain of take care of troopers wounded on the entrance. It’s usually the primary cease earlier than they’re dispatched to stabilization factors farther from the preventing after which to superior medical facilities the place extra sophisticated procedures, like amputations, are carried out.

The medics at fight outposts present fundamental trauma care, together with setting bones, making use of tourniquets, giving ache treatment and, in some areas, performing blood transfusions.

The medics’ lives revolve across the routine.

“There are only two options: Either you are on duty or you are having rest,” stated Lt. Andriy, a 27-year-old dentist who was mobilized in the summertime of 2022 and is now a lead medic for the brigade. Like different troopers, he requested that his final title not be utilized in accordance with army protocol.

“You wake up in the morning, get ready and go,” he stated. “Without too much thinking.”

As he was speaking, an pressing message crackled over the radio.

“Two men down. Fly out.”

It was time to go. Vasyl, the driving force on responsibility, glanced up on the sky, in search of Russian plane.

“Currently, there are so many drones and kamikazes,” he stated. “They are hunting us.”

Luckily for them, the clouds hung low and heavy, limiting vary of imaginative and prescient.

Vasyl pulled the armored automobile out from underneath the comb, the troopers checked their package, they usually set off as soon as extra.

They didn’t comprehend it as they drove, however this may not be a rescue mission. The 2 Ukrainian troopers had died the place they’d fallen. As soon as the crew arrived, all they may do was wrap the our bodies in black plastic luggage and carry them away.

“The best experience is when you save a heavily wounded soldier,” Lieutenant Andriy stated. “And the worst is when you can’t help.”

“I can’t call it a routine,” Lieutenant Andriy stated. “It’s our duty. But you can’t get used to people’s pain.”

The dimensions and depth of the conflict in Ukraine — which has ebbed and flowed over two years however hardly ever relented — could be laborious to fathom. Fight medics and their groups usually see the worst of it.

“You can’t describe it in words,” Vasyl stated.

A prepare conductor earlier than the conflict, he volunteered three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022. Since he spent 45 days in Bakhmut earlier than it fell to Russian forces, nothing actually shocks him anymore.

“Arms and legs, pieces of bodies,” he stated, making an attempt to explain what he had seen. “I felt hatred toward Russians. I was raised in a patriotic way. I love Ukraine. I was ready to defend it. And so now I am.”

Whereas the weapons used to kill have advanced from swords and muskets to exploding drones and thermobaric bombs, troopers die simply as they’ve for hundreds of years.

They bleed out. Organs fail. Trauma makes it not possible to attract a breath. Time turns into the enemy.

The stabilization medics are working in what the American army refers to because the “golden hour” — the time frame when a life is saved or misplaced. Simply touring the quick distance from their bunker to the zero line and again can take half-hour to an hour, usually underneath withering bombardment, Lieutenant Andriy stated.

“Once, as we went for evacuation at night, we accidentally drove to the Russian positions,” Lieutenant Andriy stated.

Russian is usually spoken by Ukrainian troopers, and they didn’t instantly understand they had been in enemy territory.

“We asked them if they had any wounded,” he stated. “They said they had their own transport. We asked them to decide quickly if they needed assistance, as we needed to leave. They started surrounding our vehicle. We understood something was wrong.”

The Ukrainians jumped into their automobile and raced away.

“The Russians were shooting at us,” he stated. “But we managed to leave and even found our wounded soldiers that we were supposed to evacuate.”

The Ukrainian army doesn’t launch detailed details about casualties or statistics on the restoration of the wounded, however about 70 p.c of all Ukrainian fight deaths and accidents end result from Russian artillery and rocket barrages, in response to the International Surgical and Medical Assist Group, an American nongovernmental group. The group has been offering surgical assist to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion started almost two years in the past.

Typically the preventing is so fierce that the medics can not attain the entrance line to evacuate the wounded. They may wait to listen to if they’re wanted at one other location, then velocity throughout bumpy roads to load wounded troopers into armored autos, treating head wounds and different accidents as they head again to a stabilization level.

Digital jamming and eavesdropping make it tough to speak the character of accidents from the battlefield. Russia has repeatedly focused medical amenities, the Ukrainian medics and the United Nations say, so area hospitals must be each hid and positioned farther from the entrance. Evacuation by air is not possible given the density of air protection close to the entrance.

The remedy of wounded troopers can be sophisticated by structural issues which are a legacy of the Soviet system: mismanagement, a dearth of skilled instructors, tensions between medics on the bottom and the command within the Normal Employees, and the reliance on volunteers to purchase most provides.

In November, President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the commander of the Medical Forces, Tetyana Ostashchenko, changing her with Anatoliy Kazmirchuk, the top of a army hospital in Kyiv.

“A fundamentally new level of medical support for our military is needed,” Mr. Zelensky stated when he introduced the change. “From high-quality tourniquets to full digitalization and transparency in supplies, from high-quality training to honest communication with combat medics in those units that are functioning properly and efficiently.”

Lieutenant Andriy stated he was generally stunned by how a lot his crew may accomplish given the circumstances.

“No matter how exhausted we are, we know what we are fighting for,” he stated. “We are fighting for our homeland. Our families and children are behind us. They would like to live in peace, to prosper, to be happy.”

“We will stand as long as needed,” he stated.