Damian Duda leads a team of volunteer Polish medics on the Ukrainian frontline who are risking their lives every day to save Ukrainian lives. Working as a medic often involves being under direct fire; Polish medics often end up being less than a hundred feet from Russian positions.
These Polish volunteer medics had originally served near Kherson in the south of Ukraine, but they have now moved to the front in Donbas in the vicinity of Bakhmut and Soledar, where the bloodiest battles are raging.
Recently, Duda posted a recording showing the evacuation of wounded soldiers from Soledar. He reported how they had moved the wounded to a point of safety and washed the car of blood before returning to the frontline to take back more injured.
“Everything will be fine, brother. You will live,” said Duda to a Ukrainian soldier he rescued near the frontline of Soledar.
Duda and his colleagues had to use an improvised vehicle in difficult terrain, as there was no other option.
However, the smaller size of the vehicle meant that it could reach places a normal medical evacuation vehicle could not.
“The wounded soldier handed me a candy bar from his pocket with his bloody hand, thanking me for my help. We are building a new history of friendship between our nations, small gestures.”
Duda added that “there is no hellhole on earth we won’t reach to get the wounded out.”
In Poland, Duda works as a spokesman for the Government Centre for Security.
