(NewsNation) — Nearly a dozen Southern California doctors are preparing to leave for Ukraine, and they hope to train 1,000 new medics.
“This is very difficult to organize because we’re trying to insert a bunch of trainers into an active war zone,” said Dr. Dan Olesnicky, a tactical medical trainer. The Ukrainian-American emergency physician has spent 20 years training local SWAT teams.
Olesnicky is organizing a team that will condense what is usually a two-week training schedule into just a few days.
“There would be a team of five to eight going initially, they would be swapped out in one-week rotations,” he said. “We have over 20 people who have already volunteered to do so.”
The biggest hurdle is logistics: Just getting into Ukraine safely in order to do the training is tricky.
Ukraine is said to be out of bandages, so medical supplies and assistance are needed urgently. A Ukrainian lawyer told NewsNation’s “Morning in America” she has jumped in as a medic and got a certification in combat casualty care.
“Many people in our volunteer medical battalion are in the same situation as I am,” Tata Marharian said. “We used to be sales managers, we used to be specialists, whatever.”
The California contingent hopes to arrive next week. They’re packing thousands of emergency kits along with their targeted training plans to help save lives.
“The goal that we set is to train 1,000 people to be combat medics,” Olesnicky said. “You have to understand Ukraine has millions of people in it. If we could train 1,000 medics, that would be huge.”
The group is accepting medical supply donations so Olesnicky can create the emergency kits depicted here. Donations may be brought to Desert Chapel in Palm Springs, California.
