Volunteers from Mendip-based charity Festival Medical Services (FMS) are fund-raising for specialist equipment desperately needed to treat injuries suffered by victims of the war in Ukraine.

They raised £3,000 in their first 24-hours of appealing for cash to help them fill 12 Trauma Boxes, but they need £15,000 in total. The boxes will contain hospital-grade items to treat shrapnel injuries, stem severe bleeding and by-pass blocked airways.

FMS is a charity whose doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, together with support staff, are best-known for volunteering at music festivals, such as Glastonbury and Reading, and other high-profile outdoor events.

There they offer full on-site emergency medical services for fans, plus other healthcare services such as dentistry, podiatry, physiotherapy and mental healthcare.

But obviously their usual medical supplies are not designed to deal with injuries sustained in modern warfare, so they need help to both purchase the items and transport them.

They have linked with an international medical charity who will take the supplies to Poland and then on to Ukraine – straight to the medical teams working in underground makeshift operating theatres and wards who are desperate to receive them.

FMS founder and managing director, Dr Chris Howes, from Croscombe, said: "We are a medical charity based here in Somerset and. like everyone else. We have been appalled by the terrible ordeal the people of Ukraine are going through.

"We have been in touch with colleagues in the country and have a list of the equipment they urgently need to treat the most severely injured casualties of the war.

"We are assembling Trauma Boxes containing the essential kit they have asked for and have arranged for these to be delivered direct to the doctors who will be putting them to good use.

"We hope the generous people of Somerset and beyond will help us by visiting our fundraising page https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/appeal/Medical_Boxes_Ukraine and giving what they can."

Dr Howes said if there was ultimately any surplus money, it would be used for further medical provision in Ukraine and for helping refugees in surrounding countries.

FMS – headquartered in Evercreech - celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019 and in 2020 was honoured with the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service - the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK. It has raised more than £1m for small-scale medical projects in the UK and around the world through its own fund-raising in that time.

For media enquiries, please contact FMS media liaison Caroline Welch on 07880 508657 or [email protected]