Former Sunderland soldier on humanitarian mission in Ukraine makes plea for first aid supplies

Dale McKenzie, 52, served in the Royal Signals and Royal Irish Regiment for eight years, and travelled out to Ukraine not long after Putin’s invasion to offer his support and expertise which he built-up during operational tours in Northern Ireland and the Falklands Islands.

After providing support to various aid agencies, Dale joined forces with fellow former serviceman Gary Cartwright and Hans Jorgensen, whose background is in the security industry, to establish Phoenix Instructors Group who are providing medical aid and tuition to support all casualties impacted by the conflict.

The most immediate need is ensuring hundreds of emergency first aid kits get to those on the front-line.

Dale, who is currently based in Lviv, said: “The conflict is currently focused around the city of Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine. There’s a lot of death in this area at the moment and it’s absolutely horrific.

“We’ve received a request from a Ukrainian field hospital of the urgent need for individual first aid kits (IFAKS) which they are running desperately short of as they deal with casualties on both sides of the conflict as well as civilians.

"It’s mainly for the emergency treatment of wounds until people can get to triage centres. We need things like tourniquets, field dressings, sterile dressings, haemostatic dressings to stem blood flow, splints, as well as pain killing and anti infection drugs.

"Supplies of triage surgical equipment are also needed. It’s a Ukrainian field hospital but it doesn’t discriminate. A casualty is a casualty.”

Dale is due to return in the UK in the next couple of weeks where he has arranged for a van to be filled with medical supplies which he will drive back to Lviv and the group can then arrange the logistics to ensure supplies are taken to the field hospital.

He added: “I’d appeal to any hospital or medical centre who may be in the process of updating stock to donate anything they can. We are happy to take anything close to or just past its use by date, although it’s obviously different for medical drugs.

"If anyone can donate on our JustGiving page to allow us to buy stock, then that would be fantastic.”

SEE ALSO: Staff and students at the University of Sunderland look to go the extra mile for the children of war torn Ukraine

This Friday, February 24, marks a year since Russian troops invaded Ukraine. In that time, there have been an estimated 8,000 civilian deaths with around eight million people displaced and now living in other parts of Europe.

Despite being over 1000km from the front-line the impact of the conflict is still present in everyday life in Lviv.

Dale said: “Whilst I’ve not experienced being hit by a missile attack people live in constant trepidation and almost everyday there are air raid sirens going off. With this week marking the anniversary of the start of the conflict people are scared as to what Putin will do next.

"Some people are moving out of the city and the market traders have not set up their stalls in the Market Square.”

Anyone who can help with the donation of medical aid is asked to contact Phoenix Instructors Group via their website phoenixinstructorsgroup.org.