Whoever Saves a Life - Seven days inside the life-and-death world of Syria’s first responders

[vcuemt]

https://medium.com/matter/whoever-saves-a-life-1aaea20b782

Parked out front was a cherry-red truck with FREIW. FEUERWEHR, shorthand in German for “Volunteer Fire Department,” along the side door in raised letters and, beneath it in Arabic, “Aleppo Civil Defense,” spray painted in black. A well-built truck, donated by the West, it was starting to show its months of use in a war zone, with several bullet holes pocking the door and crazing the windshield. But it still got the job done, speeding them to blast sites.

The members of Civil Defense were attendants to the city’s trauma, one of the few first responders left to care for the civilians caught on the front lines in Syria’s largest city. They evacuated the injured, cleaned up the bodies, and fought fires. But what they were best known for — what they had become famous for in Syria and abroad — were the dramatic rescues, the lives they pulled from under the rubble.

Medium hosts some excellent journalism, and this is no exception. Great longform read.