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did our best to not be in the way of the emergency service people as they worked .
Next , we went looking for the hospital and got stuck on a side street as a missile strike warning went off . Not knowing what to do , or where to go , we put on our vests and helmets , grabbed our gear , and made for the centre of a nearby park hoping to be as far as we could from any potential missile strikes . This was the moment when I realised , I was experiencing real fear , not all the imagined fear I had experienced at times leading up to the trip . Thankfully no missiles and a safe exit from the city as the sun went down and rocking out to music in the car , it was clear we had all been experiencing the same joy of being safe . Or as safe as we could be in Ukraine .
The following day went from light to dark so fast , even now it ’ s hard to put it all together . Heading to the city of Vinnytsia for lunch , we ’ d left a sun-drenched Odesa , quiet and peaceful in the early morning light , and rolled through kilometres of open country . A chance stop to photograph the grain harvest in action had elevated the mood even further as we worked with farmers and grain truck drivers under a stunning blue sky , fully focused on our work . And then it hit . Andriy got a call , and we ’ d saddled up and rode on in silence . Ahead in the city of Vinnytsia , three cruise missiles had hit the city centre and had we not stopped we would have been there .
The scene we found brought just one word to mind , “ shock ”. The devastation , a death toll that would pass twenty-four , and so many dozens more gravely injured was just impossible to comprehend , we worked in silence . The fire department was fighting fires aid workers clearing debris , war crimes prosecutors examining and TV crews reporting . Through my lens I ’ d watched a lady force her hand over her mouth to hold in her anguish and pain , as I stumbled over bits of humans and missiles beneath my feet .
A couple of days riding on dirt roads , visiting an old Soviet radio listening station and just being in an environment that wasn ’ t under shelling gave us a chance to breathe out and set our next plan into action . We would return to Lviv , visit the Children ’ s hospital , and work out donating the money we had been raising through social media as we travelled . It was a moving visit , as we spent time with Leo , a young soccer player from Kharkiv , who had recently undergone surgery for a tumor on his back . He was wheelchair bound , not from the surgery but the trauma of living through the bombs ,
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