"Toughest thing is sorting soldiers": How medics evacuate injured from Bakhmut

The evacuation department of the medical company of the 5th Separate Assault Battalion takes the soldiers wounded near Bakhmut to hospitals, where they get the help they need.

The company's work is shown in the video of the Ukrainskyi Svidok [Ukrainian Witness – ed.] project.

Fighters who have already been given first aid arrive in the evacuation department of the medical company. The medics usually apply a tourniquet or give them painkillers. This is done by combat medics, but in some situations, the fighters and their comrades do the job themselves.

Serhii Shpychka, the head of the evacuation department of the medical company of the 5th Separate Assault Brigade, was an anesthesiologist before the war and managed three resuscitation departments. Before the full-scale invasion, he headed the resuscitation department of the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv. Since 2014, he has been a head of medical service of one of the battalions of the Armed Forces.

According to Serhii Shpychka, the main task of the evacuation department of the hospital is to make sure the doctors can do their job at the next stages. Before taking an injured person to a hospital, his/her condition is stabilised.

There are also first-aid points in certain areas of the front

Very often the wounded have to be carried under fire. It also happens that up to thirty fighters are brought from the battlefield at once.

"If a "300th" appears [i.e., a wounded soldier, – ed.], then he must remain the only "300th". There is no task to take him out of the battlefield immediately, this is done only under safe conditions, because safety is the most important thing," says Serhii Shpychka.

"If a wounded appears, then he has to remain the only wounded" 

The medic admits that the most difficult part of his job is to "sort" the soldiers.

"It's difficult when several dozens of soldiers arrive at once, it happened before. In such cases, you have to do the ‘medical sorting’ , to decide who should be helped first. You look at the wounded man — OK, he's lightly wounded, he'll wait. And you put the other one off, because he is in such a serious condition there are few chances [of saving him – ed], and if we do not help the one who has a chance, we will lose both of them. It is a very difficult choice, it is difficult to get yourself together after that," says the head of the department.

"It's difficult when several dozens of soldiers arrive at once, this happened before"

There are also first-aid points in certain areas of the front.

"When there is an assault, either by our military or the enemy, there are always wounded. It is extremely difficult to get them from the battlefield to the hospital quickly, so first-aid points are created for this purpose. Here we stabilise the condition of the wounded: we remove the tourniquets, stop the bleeding, etc. From here, we send them to a hospital on the second line of evacuation," says the soldier known as Beagle, the member of the evacuation department of the medical company.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!