Abellio bus driver Arthur hailed for humanitarian work in Ukraine
London bus driver Arthur Smith has made headlines for his voluntary work transporting medical supplies and patients across Ukraine.
Arthur Smith told the London Evening Standard he feared for his life as he was staying overnight in a house just metres away from shelling in the east of the war-torn country and described it “like 100 fireworks going off in the next room”.
He transported humanitarian aid to the frontline and helped Ukrainian soldiers move bodies that had been unattended for weeks.
He told a reporter: “I was a Coastguard and I’ve worked with emergency services. I’ve seen bodies, but the stuff you see out there is so different, it’s personal.”
He recalled transporting a young Ukrainian girl, who had a tumour that was untreated, to a German hospital.
“There were hundreds like this, but this one in particular, she was in an ambulance that had broken down because it had travelled all the way from Donbas and it was in Kyiv. At that time I was in Lviv.
“So we got in an ambulance, I took a girl who spoke Ukrainian, we blue-lighted to Kyiv, picked up this patient and blue-lighted her through Ukraine and Poland and to Germany to a hospital.”
Although Mr Smith has returned to the capital for “some form of normality”, he said he wished he could have done more to help the people of Ukraine.
“Even if we’d gone over there and given one person what they needed, the fact that we gave thousands, I am happy about it. But I wish I could have done more,” Mr Smith said.
He led a convoy of healthcare volunteers from across the globe to Ukraine in February, using a number of vehicles that he purchased off the back of selling his mechanics business.
Under the name ‘Road to Ukraine’, the group delivered 95 tonnes of medical supplies, sent from private practices in the UK, Ireland and France, to pop-up hospitals in Ukraine, including blood and insulin.
Volunteers also supplied generators, food and hygiene products and fuel from Poland, but it quickly became apparent that more ambulances were needed.
Mr Smith said the team stripped buses and vans and retro-fitted them into make-shift ambulances to help out.
“I’ve got a blue light licence, so when I got out there, I realised they needed urgent transport for things like blood and insulin,” Mr Smith said.
“About three months in, I turned a lot of the vehicles into ambulances and was basically driving blood and insulin from Germany and Poland into really bad parts of Ukraine.
“We ended up in occupied regions a few times as we were delivering a lot of stuff to the frontline.
“We’ve gone through and seen cars that have been smouldering, the previous convoy that has come through had been ambushed.”
Mr Smith said when travelling east to Kyiv or the Donbas region, often there would be shelling.
“At night, in a convoy in that area, it’s so dangerous. You’re very visible with headlights.
“So we’d have to take breaks. We’d use 11pm to 4am to rest then we were back on the road.
“Overnight we stayed in a house. It was the only house left standing in Kharkiv, in this village. There must have been a good 100 houses, all obliterated.
“A family that one of the volunteers knew invited us to stay there, and during the night the whole house was shaking. It was something I have never experienced before.
“It was like 100 fireworks going off in the next room. It was just bombing all over and somehow it didn’t get the house.”
Despite the challenges, Mr Smith said Ukraine is “a fantastic country”.