Two Tasmanian paramedics are preparing to jet off to Ukraine as volunteers with Frontline Medics.
Dave Brown and Mattie Pickering will spend a month in the war-torn country, providing supplies and care to Ukrainians living in the conflict zone.
Heading directly to the frontline, both paramedics are self-funding their $10,000 trip each and hope to gain valuable experience from working in a war zone.
Brown, who is used to working in the challenging Tasmanian wilderness, said he is excited about the opportunity to work in a different environment.
“The variability in that you have to turn what you know and have done before into a completely different situation every time, that’s incredibly stimulating,” Brown told the ABC.
“I’ve never been up to a war zone at all before. I’m hoping that some of the skills I have, in trying to deal with things in quite a limited environment, may well be transferable.”
“The main thing about the wilderness … is that you’re out of your comfort zone, so it’s dark, it’s wet, it’s cold, the patient is cold and anxious, and it’s right at the coalface.”
Intensive care paramedic Mattie Pickering believes he can make a positive impact for people in Ukraine and plans to bring valuable experience home.
“I felt like I could probably make a decent impact for a few people, probably not tonnes of people, but if you can get one person home to their family who wouldn’t have otherwise got home, that’s a good thing,” he said.
“Obviously we don’t see the major traumatic injuries in our work here in the ambulance service in Tasmania.”
“We don’t see the shrapnel injuries, we don’t see a lot of bullet wounds and that kind of thing, so there’s a huge wealth of experience out there to go and learn and bring back.”
Pickering said the decision to go to Ukraine was made with his children, who “decided four weeks was okay”.
Both paramedics are learning some basic Ukrainian greetings and phrases and will work with a translator when they arrive in August.
