Ukrainian motocross star tests his mettle as a front-line ambulance driver
Global News
Before the Ukrainian war, Oleg Belotskyy was a well-known professional motocross rider. These days, he's behind the wheel of an ambulance on the front lines.
Before the Ukrainian war, Oleg Belotskyy was a well-known professional motocross rider. These days, his driving and coordination skills are tested behind the wheel of an ambulance, transporting injured soldiers from the front lines to hospital.
Russians are shelling ambulances as they push toward the front lines, explosions just metres in front of them.
His explanation of how he feels in those moments aren’t pretty — but they’re honest: “I’m not feeling like Superman. Every time I am scared,” he says. “Every time I have s–tty pants.”
Belotskyy, 31, is from Kyiv. He says he fell into his new wartime profession after transporting his family to safety near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and running supplies between the two cities for a Ukrainian volunteer paramedic group known as the Hospitallers.
When they found out he could drive and speaks English they asked him to come on board.
The group, which is dependent on donations, delivers supplies to the front lines and operates a volunteer ambulance service. One of its bases operates in a town near the city of Dnipro.
The closest city to the front lines of the war in Ukraine’s southeast, Dnipro has become a hub for war efforts — humanitarian and military. The bustling city of about one million residents is Ukraine’s fourth-largest, and has remained a relatively safe island as war rages along a 480-kilometre front line just several hundred kilometres away.
But those front lines can seem much closer than they are. Belotskyy says they can see red flames from rocket attacks from the Hospitallers base.
