TOLEDO, Ohio —
A Northwest Ohio nurse is back home after spending a month in Ukraine, serving as a volunteer nurse with Global Care Force.
"It's very dark. Very dark," Mila Buria said of the conditions there.
She is originally from Ukraine but has been living in northwest Ohio for nearly a decade.
Buria spent the month of September there helping patients in rural communities.
"I received such a call to be a volunteer like right there and basically go and mostly pray for people, just to share faith," she said.
She says at first, it was an adjustment, figuring out how to live and work in unstable conditions.
"When we arrived to the hotel, they told us there's no electricity at this moment. Sometimes people spend hours, could be days, depends on the time, there's no electricity," Buria explained.
In the month that she was there, Buria worked in triage doing typical tasks like taking vitals and checking blood sugar.
"We went in the areas where people just need help but there's not help from anywhere because there's nothing that's close," she said.
However, it quickly turned into more. Buria also helped treat patients dealing with the trauma of war.
"One of the person shared to me that she saw not just [an] explosion, not just the bombing in front of her, but also people's part of the body that went in the air," she recalled.
She says nothing could have prepared her for what she heard and saw.
"Being in Ukraine, it was one world. I arrived. Now, I'm living in a different world," Buria said.
But even in the darkness of war, Buria found a way to be a light for others.
"You see the person who is stressed out, but you are here for them to bring a piece of peace to their heart through prayer," she said.
She hopes to return to Ukraine to help in an emergency room.