Crewe man who drove to Poland with £4,400 worth of burns kits to drive Ukrainian refugees to safety
A 'severely disabled' man from the North West who drove to the Poland-Ukrainian border to deliver burn treatment kits is now preparing to drive refugees wherever they need to go.
Stephen Bratherton, from Haslington, near Crewe, set off on the thousand-mile trip across Europe on Saturday, 12 March, in response to the conflict in Ukraine.
He lost the use of his left leg three years ago when he was involved in a hit and run, causing him to walk with a quad stick.
But, although he finds walking hard he says he can “drive all day long”, and now wants to take those fleeing the Russian fighting to the safety of friends and family.
He wants his efforts to show others they can help too, adding: “I just hope this inspires more people to come and do what I’m doing, because if I can do it being a disabled person it’s easy peasy for others to do it.”
Stephen initially made the journey to Poland after buying 40 burn treatment kits - at a cost of more than £4,000 of his own money - to distribute to those in need.
After a three-day journey across Europe he delivered the kits to a Ukrainian medical charity who will take them across the border to Lviv to medics dealing with casualties from the Yaroviv military base attack.
"I handed them over to medics who will take them directly to the Lviv hospital where there are 150 people with burns from the explosion," he says.
"It gives me that warm feeling inside to know that they are actually useful and I chose the right product."
Stephen has now volunteered to drive refugees to friends and family across Europe, and has vowed to take a Ukrainian family to anywhere in Belgium or Holland.
He has registered as a driver at the Przemysl reception centre, where refugees crossing the border at nearby Medyka are taken, before being helped onwards to other destinations.
He says: “It’ll take me two days driving, I will pay for them for an overnight stay in Germany, probably Dresden.
"It was my intention right from the start, to make myself as useful as possible.
"I get quite emotional about it, seeing everything that's going on here at the reception centre, I just needed to do something.
"It’s really upset me to see all this, words fail me really, I’m just shocked by it all."
Stephen says he is planning to come back week after week as long as he has funding and will keep helping out where he can.
"If I get the funds to do it, I'll keep coming every week," he says. "When I’ve got a bee in my bonnet that's it."
You can donate to his cause here.
Listen to analysis of the crisis on ITV News'