On a sunny August afternoon, while many of his college friends were lying on some beach or relaxing on a foreign holiday, Doonbeg medical student, Oran McInerney, was two tenths of a second from a massacre. He was in the middle of a firing range in eastern Ukraine, training locals in basic first aid, when a cluster munition fired from a Russian fighter jet fell from the sky and almost literally hit him on the head. What happened next was chaos. Cluster bombs are vicious killers. On detonation, the bombs divide into dozens of smaller munitions and kill brutally and indiscriminately. But cluster bombs also fire forward, and on that fateful day, the Russian pilot pressed the detonator a fraction of a second too late, raining terror on the land just behind Oran and the people he was training. Earlier this month Oran returned from his third humanitarian tour in Ukraine. His first trip was in April of 2023 with …
Read More »Hurling on the front lines of a war zone
One West Clare GAA fan will be watching Sunday’s big match just 10 kilometres from the frontline of the war in Ukraine. Doonbeg man, Oran McInerney, is a final year medical student and currently working for Frontline Medics at a location in the east of Ukraine. The international charity carries out lifesaving medical evacuations of injured soldiers near the front line of conflict zones all over the world. Oran’s work is incredibly dangerous and involves treating and then transporting injured soldiers to the nearest stabilisation point, or field hospital, where they are often operated on by surgeons. This Sunday, Oran will be working a 24 hour shift on the frontline, but he is hopeful of keeping tabs on the big match. “On Sunday I’ll be on a twenty four hour shift and will try my best to catch the game. Not sure will GaaGo work in Ukraine, but you can always hope,” he told The Clare Champion. “If the internet …
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