Outreach Paramedics

To millions of TV fans, Bruce Byron is best known for his crime-fighting exploits starring as DC Terry Perkins in ITV crime drama The Bill. But these days, Bruce has swapped fictional detective work for real-life medical training – all as part of a charity project to train firefighters in war-torn Ukraine.

Bruce is Director of Operations of Outreach Paramedics, a UK-based charity set up to provide medical and humanitarian support to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022. The brainchild of Faye Shepherd, an NHS paramedic from North Cornwall, the organisation started out by delivering ambulances to the Poland-Ukraine border – with Bruce as one of the drivers.

Since then, Outreach Paramedics has branched out into taking a small team of NHS paramedics into Ukraine to train firefighters, who are often the first on the scene when rocket attacks hit civilian areas, in life-saving medical skills.

Brentwood Communications is honoured to be able to support the fabulous work Faye, Bruce and the rest of the team do by providing handheld and vehicle-mounted two-way radios for their missions to support personnel safety and security.

Background

As Bruce explains, the fact that so many Ukrainian men have been drafted into the army has left critical civilian services like fire and rescue short of experienced, well-trained professionals. But as rocket attacks from Russia reach far beyond the frontline as far as the border with Poland in the far west, there remains a stark need for first responders with the skills to administer emergency medical care.

“The authorities in Ukraine are desperate for people to work in the fire service,” said Bruce. “What is happening is you’ve got a lot of inexperienced young people joining. And they don’t necessarily have the means or the time to train them beyond the basics. Their main remit obviously is to train them how to put out fires. What’s lacking is training in BLS or basic life-saving services.

“That’s where we come into it. We go over and provide the training, and also supply trauma kits and other essential supplies. Depending on how many of us there are, we split into two teams and deliver two programmes in parallel. One focusing on basic life-saving skills, so applying tourniquets to wounds, blast bandages etc. The other on medical evacuation procedures. We’ll work with 30, 40 firefighters in a group, and when one course is finished, we’ll swap over.

“The aim is to get as much knowledge out to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. We’ve done three missions so far, and we’ve trained 516 firefighters to date. But the demand is going up. Last mission it was 283 on that one trip. We expect it will be that many again, or even more, when we go back again in January.”

Bruce is far from just a driver or observer on these trips. He’s so passionate about the work the charity does that he has been training as a paramedic himself back home in the UK.

“Since that first trip delivering ambulances, I’ve trained in first responder emergency medicine. I can now attend on ambulances as a volunteer and go to events and things like that. I’m also doing further training which will license me to administer life-saving drugs, adrenaline, morphine, etc.”

The Challenge

Outreach Paramedics relies entirely on donations to fund each mission. “We’re talking thousands of pounds to kit out six paramedics,” said Bruce. “It costs between £8,000 and £10,000 per mission. We have to beg for and borrow everything we take.”

The introduction to Brentwood came through an existing partner. “We were lucky enough to partner with a company called Sarkar Tactical, who very generously supply us with body armour, helmets, gloves etc. We knew we needed a reliable mode of communication to keep everybody in touch, so we asked Sarkar if they knew anyone who could provide radios. And they happened to know Brentwood.

“I got in touch with Josh [Nichols, Strategic Account Manager] explaining who we are and what we do, and he came back straight away and said, ‘yes, sure, what do you want?’ I couldn’t believe it, it was the easiest scrounge I’ve ever done in my life! I told him we were after personal handsets for the whole team, plus a couple of vehicle radios. And he came back in about two days and said, ‘Right, I’ve got this type of radio that I think will suit you. Josh even offered to programme all the units and fit the vehicle radios for us. All for free, and they didn’t quibble once.”