The maroon-and-gold ambulance has responded to calls in the Northeast Kingdom for years. Now, it’s set to travel halfway across the world for a new mission — helping EMS providers in Ukraine supply critical medical care during the country’s war with Russia.
The Missisquoi Valley Ambulance Service, based in Jay, is partnering with an initiative called US Ambulances for Ukraine to donate one of its vehicles to the war effort that entered its second year late last month. Missisquoi appears to be the first EMS provider in Vermont to send an ambulance to Ukraine, and one of just a few in the northeast.
The Orleans County provider no longer needs one of its ambulances because the towns it has served for decades — Jay, Lowell, Troy and Westfield — are set to no longer contract with the rescue as of April 1, according to Bill Mapes, one of Missisquoi’s paramedics.
The towns plan to contract with Newport Ambulance Service instead.
Missisquoi, which has 10 active members, plans to cut back the scale of its operations and will no longer respond to 911 calls, Mapes said. It will instead focus on providing mutual aid to nearby rescue agencies and transferring patients between hospitals.
Mapes said he first came across US Ambulances for Ukraine — an initiative managed by Illinois resident Chris Manson — while scrolling through Twitter last year. He got in touch with Manson after learning that Missisquoi was set to have a spare vehicle.
“The long and short of it is, we’ve been handed lemons, so we’re making lemonade,” Mapes said Friday. He added that the rescue isn’t on the hook for any shipping costs, which will be covered instead by the other organizations with which it is working.
Plans are for the ambulance to leave Vermont on or around March 20 and be driven to a staging facility in Virginia, and then to the Port of Baltimore, Manson said. There, it will be loaded onto a ship along with eight other ambulances and five fire trucks.
The ambulance is then set to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Germany, where it is expected to be unloaded and driven to its final destination in Ukraine, passing first through Poland.
A Chicago nonprofit, the UA Resistance Foundation, is working with US Ambulances for Ukraine and the Ukrainian government to determine where and how Missisquoi’s ambulance can be used most effectively on the ground, according to Manson. By the middle of May, he said, there’s a good chance that the ambulance will be somewhere on the front lines.
Manson, whose initiative has helped bring some 30 U.S. ambulances to Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022, said the country has an “overwhelming” need for the vehicles. Many ambulances have been destroyed by Russian forces, Manson said.
In communities that have recently been brought back under Ukrainian control, he added, local officials often need help rebuilding services such as fire and rescue.
“The moment I get an ambulance, I get a letter from someone else that needs one,” Manson, who has been to Ukraine four times so far during the war, said on Friday.
Missisquoi’s ambulance will be stocked with spare life support equipment from the rescue service before it leaves Vermont, Mapes said. The service is also asking people to donate additional equipment for the journey. Mapes noted he’s been told that Ukrainian first responders have a critical need for more flashlights and batteries right now.
The rescue service plans to host several public events with the ambulance in the coming weeks, including on March 11 and March 12, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Troy Fire Department, 6850 Route 100. The agency bought a number of paint pens, Mapes said, and people will be able to write on the vehicle with messages of support.