Zaporizhzhia

Rescuers

It's a gift from my daughter. She made it and gave it to me at the beginning of the war. It's always with me, like a charm or an amulet.

Many buildings here look like this. Rescuer Dmytro tells us about one of them:

We climbed the ladder to the fourth floor and started looking for people. The neighbours said that a couple lived in that apartment. The man was injured. We maintained voice contact with them. The woman was pregnant, so we tried to get them out as quickly as possible. They were trapped between concrete slabs. We had to act quickly because the walls were damaged and could collapse at any moment.

Oleksandr, who also participates in evacuations, adds that for the first two months of the war, he and his colleagues lived in the unit and tried to adapt to the new calls:

In the first days of the full-scale war, we had to get use to things quickly.

The paperwork we used to do faded into the background. Our top priority was to help people.

We had to adapt quickly and change our approach to how we worked. No one thought that there would ever be a war or evacuations. But that's our job: always be ready to come to someone's aid.

Illia, head of the psychological support department, added:

In situations like these, you operate at a higher level because if you let it all wash over you, you could lose your mind. You focus on your work and do doing your job.

Zaporizhzhia stands strong, as do its rescuers.

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Police

(Zaporizhzhia)