‘I didn’t have to think about it’: the veterans bringing Ukrainian kids with cancer to Canada

When Jay got a phone call last week, the details were vague.

"I was asked if I could come to Poland. All I was told was it involved helping evacuate Ukrainian children," said the Canadian military veteran, who declined to give his full name because he hopes to carry out more rescue missions. "I didn't have to think about it. Forty-eight hours later, I'm in Krakow."

In Poland, Jay joined other Canadian veterans as part of high-stakes mission to safely evacuate cancer patients to Canada.

On Wednesday, a chartered plane carrying two children and their families touched down in Toronto, successfully capping a multi-day rescue effort, at times marred by bureaucracy and bad luck.

Toronto's Sick Kids, the world-leading paediatric hospital, will treat the children for their cancers and says it's prepared to take as many as 15 children and has contacted other hospitals across the country.

But the journey of those two children and their families highlights the complexity of such missions.

"We've really been upside down and backwards in the last 10 days. It's been an emotional rollercoaster because at times, we thought this whole thing wasn't going to happen," said Brian Macdonald, a military veteran and executive director of the aid group Aman Lara.

The efforts began in earnest last week after Macdonald saw jarring images of hospitals being bombed by Russian forces.

Since last summer, the non-profit, whose name is Pashto for "Sheltered Path" has helped evacuate Afghans seeking to feel their country after the Taliban took power. So far, the group has helped more than 2,000 escape.

"We looked at the situation in Ukraine and figured we'd learned some skills in Afghanistan and that we could help," said Macdonald. "And so we just reached deep into our network."

Macdonald found that Sick Kids hospital had connections to clinics and doctors in Poland, where many of the refugees were taking shelter. The Ukrainian community offered to find free accommodation and translators.

And on 7 March, Macdonald called up Steven Day, a former commander with Canada's elite special forces unit.

Day, who oversaw mass evacuations as a ground force commander in Haiti in 2004 and in Lebanon in 2006, now runs Reticle, a security company that's been helping Aman Lara with the Afghanistan evacuations.

"When Brian called, I said let's do it," said Day. "Let's rock and roll."

Everyone involved decided to work for nothing - all they needed was the money to cover expenses.

It took a single phone call to a colleague for Day to line up a donor. Richard Hamm, a Toronto-based investment banker, put up $C200,000 (US$158,000) to cover the cost of a private plane after a Zoom meeting.

"I've been in war. I've been a peacekeeper. I've been in disaster zones. I've seen it all," said Day. "And I've seen the power of trust."

By Thursday, Jay was on the ground in Poland, visiting clinics to find families who were interested in travelling to Canada to continue cancer treatments.

On Friday, the mission hit the first of many roadblocks. The team couldn't get the travel paperwork sorted for the first prospective family - and they lost the plane they had lined up.

"You have to pay for the aircraft 24 hours before it goes wheels up. That money is non-refundable," said Day. "I couldn't risk the donor's money if we didn't have all the paperwork done or the right patients. You can't gamble $200,000."

The team soon learned the paperwork on the Canadian side could take as long as four days but, for the Polish clinics to triage a wave of incoming patients fleeing Ukraine, waiting days was impossible.

As the team scrambled to find families that would be a good fit in Canada, they had to change aircraft providers three times in two days.

Day eventually connected with James Newton at Vantage Aviation, a small UK-based company to help source a plane.

When they found an aircraft, Day wired the money - but the transfer was delayed.

"James cleaned out the company's bank account to pay a German company for the plane. And the German pilots lifted off before I was paid by the donor," said Day. "So I'm out 200 large. And James is out 200 large, all on a word of trust between two guys over the internet, who've never met face to face."

Further complicating matters on the ground, one of the children's legal guardians was his father. Because of a rule that fighting-age males can't leave Ukraine, the team had to find ways to hide the father from Polish security officers until they could get everyone on the flight. (Sick Kids hospital has not released any information about the children, citing the need for the families' privacy.)

Once the plane finally took off, Day says he was overwhelmed by a sense of calm.

"As a commander, whether in a military mission or this sort of thing, you know you've done everything you can. I can't change weather patterns. I can't sort out a refuel. You just need to trust the team to get on with it."

For Jay, who spent sleepless nights working out logistics finding suitable patients and vetting possible airports to land the evacuation plane, his urge to help stems from a different conflict.

When Afghanistan fell to Taliban forces over the summer, he was overcome by a sense of helplessness and frustration. The Canadian forces veteran had spent time in the country nearly a decade ago and felt the Afghans who had helped him and his fellow soldiers had been betrayed.

"They fought beside us. They defended us, and now they were being hunted by the Taliban. It felt like they'd been abandoned," said Jay. "When Russia invaded Ukraine, that same sentiment came back. I needed to do something. I wanted to help."

The United Nations estimates more than 3 million Ukrainians have fled their country, with the majority seeking shelter in Poland, Slovakia and Moldova.

"If you look at the mountain, you're going to get discouraged," said Jay. "Personally, it's just about taking on one impossible task at a time. You just focus on that. And when you look back, you realize you've actually made a difference."