Many foreign volunteers in Ukraine spend their time doing “hot extractions:” evacuation of civilians from the front line. That means driving into an area under fire, quickly loading little old grandmas into your vehicle, and getting out of there–fast. The typical crew will include a driver, a navigator, and a medic, and each of them has a crucial role to play in getting everyone to safety. The following list will help you make sure that your vehicle contains everything that you need. Following the list, you will find the rationale for each item, as well as explanations of obscure words (replacing our usual English notes). The driver should go through this list daily, and the team leader should verify that you did so. Have something to add? Tell us about it in the Comments section.
Daily vehicle checklist
- Oil and fluids checked
- Tires checked
- Battery expiration date checked
- Lights and turn signals checked
- Spare tire air pressure checked
- Jack in place
- Medical bag in place
- Tool kit in place
- Crew snacks and water
- Water for civilians
- Radio present
- Litter present (it’s not what you think–see below, or this video)
- Phone cables present
- Powerbank present
- Fire extinguisher present
- Jumper cables present
- Blankets present
Problems noted: Here you should document anything that you need to take care of before departing on a mission.
Roads near the areas of combat in Ukraine have typically been heavily damaged by shelling, tracked vehicles (tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc.), and the like, and are hell on the vans that extraction teams rely on. If you do not take care of yours, it will not be able to take care of you–or of the civilians for whose lives you are responsible… Hence this checklist. Here are explanations of some of the words that appear on the list.
Spare tire: This is the extra tire that you will use if your tire is damaged. “Spare” means an extra thing that you have in case you need it. “Spare tire” is also a slang word for the fat hanging off of the waist of a man. (On a woman, it’s a “muffin top.”)
Jack: This is the mechanical device that you use to raise a vehicle in order to change a flat tire. This video will help you learn this obscure English word.
Medical bag: This is an easily identifiable bag containing more than you carry in your individual first aid kit (IFAK). In my group, the medical bags include everything that goes in our IFAKs, plus a splint, eye covers, a windlass for improvising junctional tourniquets, a radiation monitor, trauma scissors, and extra gauze. Lots of extra gauze.
Litter: This is a device for carrying an injured person, or more often, an old person who cannot walk. Speed is of the essence if you want to avoid Russian artillery figuring out exactly where you are, so anyone with limited mobility needs to be moved by you, not hobble along at their own speed. This video will help you learn this obscure meaning of the word litter.
Want to support our work in Ukraine? You can send donations directly to me via PayPal using my email address, if you know me. Otherwise, I recommend these three groups. One of them is mine, and the others I have worked with very closely. Please mention that you came to them via me/the Zipf’s Law blog.
Photo: Paul Wall, an American veteran paratrooper, a thinker, and a man of courage, fixes a vehicle in Kyiv before leaving for a month in Bakhmut
Base UA/База ЮА is a Ukrainian organization that does hot extractions, sets up mobile medical clinics, and runs tactical medicine courses and an art camp for refugee children in the beautiful Carpathian mountains. With our comrades from the US and Germany, we have evacuated thousands of civilians from Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.
Community Self Help is a Ukrainian organization that has worked with refugees from the Donbas region since the start of the Russian invasion in 2014 providing mental health care. Since the current phase of the war started in February 2022, they have also provided medical supplies, documented war crimes, and fought back against Russian propaganda and disinformation.
Global Augmentation is an American and Irish organization that sends volunteers to Ukraine (and has a group about to leave for Turkey for search and rescue operations). Global Augmentation folks are drivers, navigators, medics, trainers, and all-around fearless guys and gals. (And yes, that’s my picture on the web site.)
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