Photo: Aleksandra Shchebet via NPR
Before the sun came up on Feb. 24, Kyiv neurologist Aleksandra Shchebet woke to explosions some 25 miles away. That night, she left behind all she owned and drove west in two cars with her grandmother, parents, brother, sister-in-law, 3-year-old nephew and two friends, 24 hours without sleeping, to northwest Ukraine. She started offering medical consultations online or over the phone, free of charge. Now she has found another way to help. Starting at 7 a.m., she spends 14 hours a day at a cold warehouse where she sorts, counts and packs up food and medical supplies donated by volunteer groups outside the country. The boxes are loaded onto trucks that take them deeper into Ukraine. As a neurologist, she knows this war will lead to many cases of PTSD and depression. Two surgeons she knew were killed in Chernihiv, performing surgery when a bomb landed in the operating room. She says it's felt like 10 years since the attack began. But "we will survive and we will build a new country very soon."
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