TRUE-LIFE
A little girl was going to die… I had to do something
Jacinta Curran, 61, Warrenpoint
Climbing into the back seat of the van, I hugged the desperate woman inside – her little girl, too.
‘Don’t worry. You’re safe now,’ I soothed.
She didn’t speak English, but crumpled into my arms, in tears.
I noticed how her daughter was underweight.
Outside, crowds of people flooded across the border from Ukraine into Poland. Fear etched on their faces. It’s like no man’s land, I thought.
It was March 2022, days after Russia had invaded Ukraine.
Back home in County Down, Northern Ireland, I’d been chair of Chernobyl Aid Newry, a charity organising support for kids continuing to be affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
But after war broke out, we’d quickly changed our focus to getting aid to Ukraine, raising £20,000 to help those affected.
Now, me and fellow volunteer Collie McGuigan were at the Ukrainian-Poland border, our van packed with food, medicine and other essentials.
That’s when I’d spotted the woman cowering in a van alongside ours.
Now, as I huddled next to her, my heart broke.
She said her name was Daria and her daughter was Vlada.
It was clear she wasn’t well, as Daria held her in her arms.
The colour drained from her face, Vlada looked in pain, unable to sit up, her limbs jerking.
They both desperately needed help.
Charity workers had organised a flight for Daria and Vlada to Dublin.
‘I’ll help them when they arrive,’ I promised.
After distributing aid, we moved Daria and Vlada to our van and took them into Poland, where safe accommodation had been arranged for them.
I couldn’t get their frightened faces out of my mind
That night, I couldn’t get their faces out of my mind. Alone, frightened. So, two days later, when I discovered that they were booked on the same flight as me, my mind was made up.
‘I’m taking you home with me,’ I told Daria, using Google Translate to explain that I lived an hour’s drive from Dublin, across the border in Northern Ireland.
Through the app, Daria told me that Vlada, then 4, had been diagnosed with Batten disease when she was 3.
A rare genetic, progressive, incurable disorder that affected her brain, causing loss of physical and mental abilities, including blindness and seizures.
Vlada wasn’t expected to live past her 10th birthday, but she’d have died much sooner if she’d stayed in Ukraine. It was already impossible to access her anti-seizure medication.
My medical background as a pharmacist meant that I was perfectly placed to help. They’ve been sent to me for a reason, I thought. At home a week later, I nervously showed Daria around the ground-floor spare room.
