SUSSEX COUNTY, Va. -- After 15 years of serving the people of Stony Creek in Sussex County, Unit 340 will leave the roads of Stony Creek behind for the front lines of the war in Ukraine.
"With your ambulance going over there, that's going to be our 30th ambulance going into Ukraine," Kevin Dillard with U.S. Ambulances for Ukraine, said. "So this ambulance will go in service within about 30 minutes of us dropping it off in Ukraine."
Dillard, the president of Life Care in Fredericksburg, is helping out the organization in the Commonwealth.
"So Life Care donated three ambulances and we delivered those in January of this year," Dillard said.
Dillard helped with delivery not only with the Life Care ambulances but also with others, ultimately ending up near the front lines.
"I can tell you without a doubt, the equipment's getting used the way we anticipated it would," Dillard said.
But just days after heading back to the United States, one of the ambulances was hit by a shell from the Russian side and was completely destroyed. Three people lost their lives in the accident.
Photographs and video from Ukraine show ambulances from across Virginia doing their new assignment, including Life Care ambulances and one from Richmond.
In January, the Richmond Ambulance Authority donated an ambulance they were replacing. Chris Manson, who founded U.S. Ambulances for Ukraine, was in Richmond for their donation.
"They can't wait to have it. It's needed desperately," Manson said. "American ambulances are larger than most any other ambulances you'll find around the world."
One reason so many ambulances are needed is due to the conditions overseas.
"It is an unforgiving geography. The conditions, it is a war zone," Chip Decker, the CEO of the Richmond Ambulance Authority, said.
"They have lots of potholes because the military equipment is using the roads, it's tearing the roads up," Dillard said.
Now as unit 340 leaves Stony Creek for the last time, county leaders and rescue squad members say they are glad it will be put to good use to save lives.
"We want to help others and we have been so blessed here in Stony Creek, in Sussex County, Virginia, I think that it's our way of showing, being a blessing to someone else," Carolyn White with the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad said.
Unit 340 will be in Fredericksburg for about two weeks and then will head to the port in Baltimore where it will join other U.S. ambulances heading across the Atlantic to Ukraine.
