Canadian veterans on the ground in Ukraine with ambulances and medical supplies

Chris Ketler and a small team of Canadian and British volunteers drove a trio of ambulances from the U.K. to Kyiv. Now, Ketler is staying to help train civilians in first aid.

More than a week after leaving to help deliver three fully equipped ambulances to war-torn Ukraine, a Surrey, B.C., man is now on the ground in Kyiv, helping to build a field hospital and train civilians in first aid.

Chris Ketler, a Canadian Forces veteran and Canada Border Services Agency officer, flew to the U.K. on March 13 with a small team of Canadian and British volunteers, where they collected the ambulances, then drove them to Ukraine.

“We left Bristol and drove through Europe down to Poland. The idea was to take these ambulances fully stocked with medical supplies that were both donated by the Bristol Ambulance Service and purchased with some of the funds (we raised) as well,” he said.

Despite the raging war, Ketler said the team still had to go through a bureaucratic process of getting the vehicles registered to operate in Ukraine at the Polish border.

But he said local officials were “ecstatic” to receive the vehicles and supplies, adding that much of the equipment they’ve received so far has been in poor condition or not fully operational.

Two doctors met the team at the Polish border and immediately took one of the ambulances to help treat people on the front lines, he said.

“They keep sending things like old vans that have been converted to ambulances, but they break down on Day 1 or they don’t make it there at all,” he said.

“So the fact that we brought down three ambulances that you can actually, one, drive and, two, use to respond to calls because we started with all, at least, the basic equipment you would need — defibrillators and ProPacks (medical kits) and blood pressure monitors, everything you need to respond to a normal ambulance call on the street. They’re just over the moon and ecstatic that we’ve managed to get them this kind of equipment that they are in so desperate need of.”