Whenever the air raid sirens sounded in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, Dr. Georgia Milan would follow the crowd into a subterranean concrete bunker to wait out the potential threat.

The Pocatello physician was in Ukraine treating refugees displaced by the Russian invasion from March 8-27. She was part of a small group of doctors and nurses sent by the Missoula, Montana, nonprofit Hands on Global, which is devoted to providing medical care globally to refugees.

The team received special permission from the minister of health for western Ukraine to work across the border. The board of directors with Hands on Global, nonetheless, had reservations about allowing the team to enter a war zone.

“They were hesitant but they said we should go where we’re needed,” Milan said.

Milan acknowledges it was unusual and unnerving to occasionally have to seek refuge in a crowded bomb shelter. But she wouldn’t allow herself to panic considering the bravery of the people surrounding her.

And she’s eager to return to Ukraine as soon as possible, based on the importance of the work. In Chernivtsi, more than 60,000 refugees were packed into 33 shelters. Fortunately the city in western Ukraine wasn’t bombed while Milan was there.

“It was hard to be too afraid because we were with people who had lost everything but their lives, and they were showing such incredible courage,” Milan said.

Milan and her team spent nights in an apartment in Siret, Romania. In Siret, they witnessed an incredible international response. Volunteers arrived in droves to the border country to help feed and care for the Ukranian refugees. Help and resources were scant on the Ukrainian side.

It took her team a half hour to move through the security check points across the border into Ukraine each morning, against the grain of thousands of fleeing women, children and elderly people.

A driver would take them from the border to where they worked in Chernivtsi at daybreak and return them to Siret at night.

“We had a wonderful man who was our driver. He and his family were refugees,” Milan said. “They had a very nice home in Kharkiv, and now they’re sharing a three-room apartment with 15 other people.”

Observing endless lines of refugees, Milan was impressed by the children, who waited in the cold for hours but never acted up.

“They knew what was at risk and they knew the horrors they were running from,” Milan said. “It was just an amazing show of humanity in a crisis.”

The scenes at the border were always heart-wrenching. Milan regularly saw men dropping off their families, not knowing if they’d ever see them again. She said the Ukrainians are a strong people and are incredibly gracious and kind.

“I think the main message is not for a minute do they think they’re going to lose this war and not for a minute do they think (Ukraine President Volodymyr) Zelensky is going to divide this country and give a part of it to Russia,” Milan said. “It was such a strong feeling of nationalism and representing democratic countries everywhere that they would never, ever give up.”

With every return trip to Chernivtsi, Milan delivered badly needed medical supplies from across the border. Medicine was in extremely short supply. She mostly treated refugees for common illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, abdominal pain and stress-related afflictions. COVID-19 was rampant at one of the shelters.

Milan was surprised by how important it was to the Ukrainians to know a team from the United States was there to help them. Milan and her peers were relieved by another team from Hands on Global.

“Even in the face of losing everything, they continue to be strong and have faith and they have faith in the world and they have faith in the United States, that the United States will help them,” Milan said.