DONOR SPOTLIGHT: GEORGE NEWELL

“I’ve been following the war since russia invaded,” says George Newell, “and since the beginning, the medics in Ukraine have been short on personnel, medical supplies and ambulances.” 

A retired commercial airline pilot who became a paramedic at age 65, George isn’t one to notice a problem and do nothing about it. “As a fellow medic, I felt for them, and so I started buying paramedic supplies and assembling them into paramedic-level backpacks.” Once he’d sourced his supplies, Newell went in search of a way to safely get the packs to front line medics–that’s when he found Sunflower Seeds Ukraine. Since then, we’ve been delivering Newell’s professionally assembled medic backpacks to front line medics who every day save the lives of Ukrainian Defenders. 

“When you’re in a war situation, your pack can’t be too big or too small,” says Newell. Each pack contains tourniquets, quick clot, combat bandages, oropharyngeal airways, nasopharyngeal airways, a bag valve mask, chest decompression needles, chest seals, a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, and a pulse oximeter. “Because of my work as a paramedic, I can assemble each pack for about $600, which is about half what it would cost on the open market.” 

What inspired Newell to become a volunteer paramedic during retirement? “Being a pilot was my vocation; being a paramedic is my avocation,” explains Newell. When asked about where he’s put his paramedic skills to use, Newell seems almost shy about talking about his volunteerism. When nudged a bit, he opens up. During the eight years since earning his paramedic license, Newell has volunteered close to home (Marshall Fires, most recently) and as far away as Nepal when massive earthquakes struck in 2015 and more recently on the island of Lesbos in Greece triaging Syrian refugees arriving from Turkey by boat. When asked what the experience is like, Newell pauses, then shares: “During the two weeks I was in Nepal, our team of nine treated 1,091 patients.” That statistic alone drives home the immense need volunteer medical teams face when rushing to the scene of natural or humanitarian disaster. 

As unlikely as becoming a paramedic during retirement may seem, Newell sees parallels between captaining a commercial flight and being a paramedic: “Both are a big responsibility, and both are high stress; both require a lot of education and are skills intensive; and whether you’re a pilot or a paramedic, you are responsible for other people’s lives.”