North Cornwall paramedic says she feels more useful in Ukraine than queuing outside hospital

  • Watch Charlotte Gay's report here.

A north Cornwall paramedic says helping to train Ukrainian firefighters has been more fulfilling than what she's can do working on an ambulance in the UK.

Faye Shepherd, the founder of Outreach Paramedics, has just returned after spending two weeks teaching first aid in the war-torn country.

Reflecting on her time in Ukraine she says "as much as I love being a paramedic I can't do as much as I want to do to help people".

"When I can do my day job, I love my day job but sitting outside of the hospital for the entirety of a 12-hour shift...there's there's only a limit to what I can do to help the problem because of the system."

The team of four paramedics trained nearly 170 firefighters in the space of two weeks. Credit: Outreach Paramedics

Faye says training firefighters in life-saving first aid makes her feel a lot more useful.

"167 firefighters trained in the space of a couple of weeks, and who knows how many lives they will save?"

"I think that's a bigger impact than me going to work and looking after one patient for 12 hours."

During the mission, it was confirmed Cornish aid worker Chris Parry died while helping to rescue those stranded on the front line in Ukraine.

Faye says the danger of being in Ukraine was taken seriously, and training often continued in the basement of buildings while bomb sirens were sounding.

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Paramedics head to war-torn Ukraine to give lifesaving training to firefighters

"It made me feel sick initially, for us it's a huge shock but hearing it in real life was very different. But as quickly as it happened, the fire people they were like, Come on, let's get the equipment, go down to the basement and we'll continue training."

"They wanted to maximize their time with us because it's a very real possibility now that they might have to apply a tourniquet to one of the fallen comrades."

Meanwhile, another Cornish charity is preparing for its first trip to deliver medical supplies and support people in Ukraine.

Helping Children of Ukraine CIC has been supporting refugees and host families in the St Austell area. But now three of the team are preparing to leave the country on Sunday 12th February and head for Ukraine.

Victoria has been supporting families who moved to St Austell with cooking groups and art lessons Credit: ITV News

Victoria Gardner, who is originally from Ukraine, is acting as the lead translator. She says there has been "a lot of pain" this past year.

"I'm in contact with Ukrainians, relatives, friends. So every day looking at the news is a very hard time. Ukraine needs help."

Emma Lankford is a crisis manager for Cornwall Neighbourhoods for change.

She says of course she's feeling "apprehensive" about the trip.

"Of course, it would be a complete lie to say I'm not apprehensive about it, but that will keep us on our toes. There's got to be certain safety measures we are thinking of."

Part of the mission is to learn about how they can better support Ukrainians back into normal life after the war and to train them to support their mental well-being.

Emma says right now they are "training trauma champions" so people in Ukraine can better understand the long-term mental health impacts of trauma on them and their communities.