The High-Tech Bus Providing Lifesaving Treatment For Ukrainian Soldiers Wounded In Battle

Volodymyr, 22, a member of the Hospitallers Medical Battalion, a Ukrainian organization of volunteer medical professionals, stands outside an intensive care bus in eastern Ukraine on April 11.

The bus, painted with sunflowers -- Ukraine's national flower -- has been a welcome refuge for seriously injured soldiers who need lifesaving medical care that is not possible near the front.


 

With a six-bed intensive care unit and room for more, the "Avstriika" bus, named for a deceased Austrian volunteer, has evacuated nearly 600 people so far.

 

Ruslan, a 26-year-old volunteer paramedic, provides fluids to a Ukrainian soldier who was wounded in Bakhmut.

Ruslan and Volodymyr, a trainee doctor, use a mobile app to examine the vitals of a seriously injured soldier.

The volunteers must work under cover of darkness to load wounded soldiers into the converted bus to bring them to a military hospital in the city of Dnipro where they can receive proper medical treatment.

During the journey, the medical team stabilizes the most serious cases as they communicate with the hospital in Dnipro to prepare for their arrival.

 

An injured Ukrainian soldier awaits transfer.

“At the moment, there is only one operational bus, the one we are using now," says Volodymyr. "But we bought two more buses. We are equipping them and they will be operational as soon as possible. I cannot tell you when exactly, but I think that in a month or two they will be fully operational."

The ambulance bus project is part of a wider network of evacuation teams in Ukraine, linking soldiers in the trenches to small teams in rear positions, then to field hospitals, small nearby facilities, and eventually to large centers for serious cases.

The volunteers have also been targeted by Russian missiles.