Damian Duda, a Polish academic and media worker, was only 25 years old when he first went to Ukraine as a volunteer combat paramedic in 2014.
Almost 10 years on, when Russian bombs started falling over Ukrainian cities at the start of its invasion, he had built up a team of six people with experience on battlefields as far afield as Iraq and Syria.
They had also started filming their medical missions driving out to the frontlines in Ukraine in a specially-equipped vehicle, notching up tens of thousands of views on social media.
“Our task is to get the soldier out of the battle, provide him with basic medical care, make sure that he does not bleed out... and take him to a relatively safe place where ambulances are waiting for him,” the 34-year-old told Reuters in his home city of Warsaw.
He struggled with his first mission, even though he had received army and medical training.
"I was very afraid of that test moment. I was very afraid of being under fire", Duda said, adding "it turned out that despite the fear, I could control it and turned it into the ability to think logically and make quick decisions".
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