SPRINGFIELD, Ore, - A nurse from Springfield spent a few weeks in March overseas in Ukraine along with a non-profit organization providing medical and primary care to Ukrainian civilians.
Heidee Sevilla is a nurse who works for Trillium in Springfield. She spent the months leading up to March fundraising for her trip through Global Care Force, a volunteer-based non-profit that sends teams of healthcare professionals to places in need. The organization has sent teams to Ukraine every month since the war in Ukraine started in 2022.
Sevilla finally reached her fundraising amount and served with a team of six other American heath care professionals and translators in cities all along Eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainians she treated had not had any medical care since the war began.
"The devastation was hard to look at, these small farm towns. What military strategic-ness did this town have?" she said.
Sevilla was a triage nurse during her nearly two weeks in Ukraine, often driving with her team from bigger cities they were housed in to towns and villages near the front lines in Eastern Ukraine.
She served in gray areas or war-torn towns just a few miles from front line warfare.
"We provided everything, treatments, medications, basic trauma care. All of them have PTSD," she said of the Ukrainian civilians she treated. "Having to go without food electricity and water. A lot of them won't leave."
She often prioritized those who needed respiratory care or blood pressure. She said a lot of Ukrainians had high blood pressure due to living in constant stress.
"Deformed wounds due to trauma endured by Russians. We’re not a surgical team. A lot of people had bones that didn’t heal properly," she said. "All we did was put them in contact with big cities, but it’s a long waiting list."
Sevilla said there were civilians with acute burns, in which case they would clean and bandage the burns. But a lot of Ukrainians she treated needed medication for ailments such as pain or diabetes.
She said the surrounding war environment is just as bad as anyone could imagine.
"The constant barrage of munitions that Ukrainians have to deal with," she said. "They’re probably the most resilient people on the face of the planet. Their hope and internal fortitude is just amazing."
She noted how despite the desperate need for medical attention after waiting so many months and years, the Ukrainians were very patient when it came to waiting in line and speaking through translators.
She noted one civilian she treated who had been through a lot but did not express any complaints.
"A 19-year old soldier came from one of those eastern villages. He had been sent home. He was in Bakhmut. A platoon of 29, he was one of four survivors" she said. "He’s like 18 months older than my daughter, very baby faced. He was very mangled, he’s got a lifetime of pain he’s gonna have to deal with. He didn’t complain, these people don’t like to complain."
Sevilla served as a medic in the United Starts Army Nurse Corps beginning in 2001. She said she joined after 9/11 and spent several tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt. Sevilla said her time in Ukraine thought felt more personal due to being up close and treating civilians directly near the front lines compared to treating American soldiers miles away from the front lines.
She said it was important for people in Oregon and the United States to know how dire the situation is in Ukraine even after two years, they still need help from the U.S.
"Everyone thinks we’ve given them enough. It's more imperative now than ever they get them military aid," she said. "Five days after I left, Kyiv got bombed, the most heavily fortified city... We’ve become so desensitized because it's gone on so long. Russians are anticipating that the world gets bored, and they're gonna ride it out until [Ukrainians] run out of ways to defend themselves."
She said the best way to help out Ukraine is to simply continue the conversation and never let the war fade into the background. She plans on going out again in February 2025 if the war is still going and if she has completed her family nurse practitioners school by then.
Aaron Arellano joined KEZI 9 News as a news reporter in September of 2023. If you have a story idea for Aaron, you can email him at aaronarellano@kezi.com.
