Utah Paramedic Who Bought 1-Way Ticket To Ukraine Is Helping Fighters In Combat

A paramedic from Utah is currently in Ukraine to help defend the country from Russian invaders.

The 21-year-old medic was working two jobs and living a humdrum life in the U.S. when she came across the news about the war.

Determined to do something, she bought herself a one-way ticket to Ukraine and has since been fighting to defend the country against the Russians.

"This is a human thing. You can't sit back and watch. It's like sitting and watching someone kicking a dog for no reason, kicking a dog in the head. It's crying. You don't stop it," the paramedic told CNN.

The medic is now known as "Baby Dog" to her unit in the village on the outskirts of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, Eunews24 reported. Her identity and exact location were not revealed due to the risk faced by foreign fighters in the area.

Baby Dog said she couldn't just sit back and watch the devastation as Russians began their attack on Ukraine nearly four months ago.

"I wasn't doing much at home. It was just working two jobs, pretty boring," she told CNN.

She became a soldier by signing up with Ukraine's International Legion of Territorial Defense. The program was launched in late February, and Baby Dog was recruited along with thousands of other foreign fighters.

Baby Dog said there are many American and German fighters in her unit. She also shared that her new life as a paramedic in the heart of combat has been like a James Bond film.

She witnessed the fight up close for the first time a few weeks ago. "I had my big medic bag on. Everybody had all their gear on. It was raining, it was miserable," she told the outlet. "We were climbing a 45-degree hill on the road and then out of nowhere, just this huge cluster bomb."

Baby Dog then recounted that following the first blast, she saw one of their soldiers wounded on the road. But when she tried to run toward her comrade, a second bomb struck.

"I got there and then the second barrage went off," she added. "They usually come in twos here."

Baby Dog said the bombs were cluster munitions. It means each one of them contained small bombs that randomly exploded.

"We managed to pull him (the wounded soldier) into the tree line while the cluster bomb was going off," Baby Dog went on to say. "By the time we got to him, he had already passed away."

"It was very tough. The thought of, like that could have been me," she added.

The horrors she has witnessed since setting foot in Ukraine have made her question her faith in God.

"Before I hadn't really seen what a human could do to another human for no reason. And it's kind of shaken me a little bit to think that He would allow this or just let it happen," she said further.

Baby Dog said it would take her a while to get used to life in the U.S. once she returns.

"I'm going to have to play artillery in the background to go to sleep…" the medic said. "It's definitely going to be very different."