Said Ismahilov, a mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims in Ukraine "Umma", shifted from the religious sphere to a military one.
Since the early hours of the full-scale invasion, he had a different calling; to serve as a paramedic in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
His life, like everyone else’s in Ukraine, got split into two, life before and life after February 24, 2022. He was convinced the war would start, that’s why he began training in the Bucha-Irpin Territorial Defense Battalion back in December 2021.
I wanted to be prepared, to know what to do and how to save others. We had excellent commanders who led our trainings and field exercises, designed to prepare us for a war on a much bigger scale, the great war.
Said Ismahilov first came face to face with the full-scale invasion in Bucha. He took his own family out of town, but later returned, and awaited orders from the Territorial Defense Battalion commanders. But these instructions never came.
On February 25,the day after enemy forces crossed the Ukrainian borders, a Russian convoy of military vehicles entered Bucha. Said had no other choice but to leave, knowing better than many what ‘occupation’ means; he had been living in Donetsk until September 2014, months after Russians had occupied the city.
Said Ismahilov arrived in Kyiv and learned from his friends - doctors from the ASAP RESCUE Unit - that the evacuation of Irpin’s wounded had begun. They gave him the chance to join the effort, any offer which he didn’t hesitate to accept. And rightly so, his medical knowledge was put straight to the test from the very first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The mosque of the Islamic Cultural Centre, where he was mufti and imam, was closed in the initial weeks of the war.
“I had no idea how I could continue my work in the mosque. Just sit and pray and that’s it? No. That’s something I can do anywhere. When in battle, in a car, during evacuation.”
Said delivered several video messages to the Muslims of the world; to the Muslims of Ukraine, Russia and some other countries. After that, he began evacuating the wounded. “Since then I’ve been providing first aid and evacuating the wounded as part of the Hospitallers Medical Battalion, ASAP RESCUE Unit.
Said believes this war is a matter of our survival. “Russians will destroy all the Ukrainians if we lose.”
A military paramedic's job is to save a wounded person's life. Military paramedics, first of all, have to care for military personnel.
However, it very often happens that civilians are in need of medical assistance of some kind. The problem is that they don't want to leave their homes, reluctant to evacuate from even the hottest spots on the front line. "This is a huge problem as resources are limited, medical devices scarce. It gives us a better footing if our focus goes on those who need it most, our military units. In this way, our resources would be distributed in an economical and rational manner," says Said Ismahilov.
Working with the military entails providing first aid and evacuating those in need to a stabilisation point or a hospital. Said's crew has already evacuated hundreds of injured people, but the number cannot be shared.
There have been many memorable moments from Said's time as a medic that he will never forget.
For example, the extreme evacuation from Hirske, Luhansk Oblast.
A wounded soldier was bleeding out, screaming from pain. As soon as the crew left the hostile location, the vehicle’s tire blew.
Now, for those that don’t know, the landscape of Luhansk is that of a steppe so the crew was in full view, an easy shot for the Russian military, standing right in the middle of an open field.
Sitting ducks, they had to get out of the open as fast as possible to avoid any Russian shelling attempts hell-bent on making this adventure Said and his crew’s last. It was, however, impossible for Said’s crew.
With time running out, there was no time to sit and consider all of the options; every moment wasted increased the soldier's chances of dying. Said was not about let this happen.
With no one nearby to help the crew, the only thing they could do was drive, drive as fast as they could on the flat tire and hope that was enough. It was slow, with Russian missiles falling left, right, and centre, but the crew did it! They escaped and evacuated the wounded.
Another was during the evacuation from Lysychansk.
Russians committed another horrible war crime. They fired upon those who were queued up, waiting for food at a distribution point. It was a bloodcurdling scene.
Said was evacuating two women and two little boys at the time when the missiles struck. The boys suffered terribly all the way. One of them was severely shell-shocked and wounded. The other one had severe injury to his face and jaw. A little kid couldn’t even eat. He could only drink water using a straw.
There was a dramatic evacuation from Bakhmut.
The wounded soldier’s life was almost cut short when he was taken out. The crew saw him starting to die. His heart stopped. But they raced with all their might to the nearest hospital, believing the warrior had a chance to survive. Said and his team managed to take the wounded to the hospital before it was too late. The wounded soldier experienced clinical death, but doctors resuscitated him.
Luckily, the story had a happy ending. The soldier survived.
