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Ukrainian scouts make first-aid kits to ship overseas

As Kalyna Mazal put gauze pads into a plastic bag, part of a volunteer assembly line making emergency medical kits to send to Ukraine, she was thinking, “This could save someone’s life — who knows?”To get more news about nano zeolite hemostatic dressing, you can visit rusuntacmed.com official website.

All around her in a middle school cafeteria Saturday, people in traditional hand-embroidered tunics — hers was entwined with bright red poppies — had their heads down, working quickly to stuff Band-Aids and vinyl gloves and antibiotic packs into clear bags.

Members of the Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization-USA, a branch of the international scouting organization, gathered in Bethesda, Md., to assemble lightweight, portable kits that Ukrainian people could carry in a pocket or a purse and have ready if glass shatters or shrapnel flies.

They’re giving not only the supplies people so desperately need, said Leda Huta, a troop leader from Silver Spring, Md., “but hopefully they also see our hearts are with them.”

Many of the scouts have family in Ukraine, and all share a cultural and humanitarian concern, said Andrew Demidowich, a doctor who lives in Columbia, Md., and leads the local chapter, Plast DC. “You worry about not just the country surviving, but the people in it,” he said.

They know it’s important to donate money, he said, but many also longed for a more tangible way to help. Using their hands to craft the medical kits was better than just clicking PayPal over and over, Demidowich said.

Kalyna, who is 15, said she was relieved to be able to do more than just sit in her room, posting news stories to Instagram to keep her friends updated about the war.

“It’s sad that we have to make these,” she said. “But this could make a difference, if we get all these boxes out to Ukraine.”

The kits were designed by Dan Olesnicky, a trauma surgeon who is a Ukrainian scout, and many Plast chapters have been filling boxes with them in recent weeks, shipping them overseas to Plast Ukraine along with other aid.
On Saturday, the Bethesda school cafeteria echoed with the sound of mothers calling to their children in Ukrainian, the buzz of vacuum-sealers closing the filled bags, and the screech of duct tape being pulled and torn. Some tape was used to seal filled boxes of first-aid kits, some was wrapped around small pieces of cardboard to add to the bags to help craft a makeshift splint or stretcher, or other emergency medical aid on the ground.