{"id":39810,"date":"2022-06-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-humbled-by-ukrainian-people-after-humanitarian-aid-trip\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:51:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:51:44","slug":"durango-man-humbled-by-ukrainian-people-after-humanitarian-aid-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-humbled-by-ukrainian-people-after-humanitarian-aid-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango man \u2018humbled\u2019 by Ukrainian people after humanitarian aid trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Samaritan\u2019s
Samaritan\u2019s Purse medical staff member Daniel Bergman treats a patient who was displaced during the conflict in Ukraine. Disaster response specialists from across the globe have come to meet critical needs and remind patients that they are not alone or forgotten, according to Samaritan\u2019s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization. (Courtesy of Samaritan\u2019s Purse)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango man Daniel Bergman\u2019s nearly two-month trip to Ukraine to deliver medical aid to refugees was far from his first humanitarian effort, but it was one of his most memorable ones.<\/p>\n

On March 3, Bergman boarded a Douglas DC-8 airplane owned by Samaritan\u2019s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization Bergman has volunteered with for years. Its destination was Poland, and Bergman was joined by staff members who he helped load up a Tier 1 field hospital, he said.<\/p>\n

The aid organization had five different remote clinics stationed across Ukraine as well as a field hospital in Lviv, Ukraine, just across the Polish border. He said for security purposes, the locations of field clinics aren\u2019t identified.<\/p>\n

He also helped a mobile medical unit consisting of himself, a doctor and some translators. They visited refugee hubs, hosted a clinic for a day and moved on, he said.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, the injuries he treated were three to four days old.<\/p>\n

He treated refugees with wrist, ankle and knee injuries suffered while fleeing from advancing Russians \u2013 missile attacks and homes getting shelled in the middle of the night, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning down stairs when there\u2019s no electricity or you\u2019re not turning on the lights because you don\u2019t want to draw attention to yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cSo lots of fall injuries from running, tripping over curbs and stairs and all the various rubble that might be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dan
Dan Bergman on Thursday at his La Plata County home. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He provided pharmaceuticals to diabetics who didn\u2019t have time to pack their bags before escaping. People would often have nothing but the clothes on their backs, a spare pair of underwear and maybe a backpack.<\/p>\n

Bergman and the others he worked with also served as \u201cconduits\u201d for people to get back into Ukraine\u2019s health care system.<\/p>\n

In the Ukrainian health care system, everyone has their own family doctor, who under normal circumstances would be the one to refer someone for more specialized care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, when you flee Kharkiv and your doctor\u2019s fled (to) somewhere else, you don\u2019t have that ability to get some of the specialized care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said Ukraine has great hospitals and doctors. His biggest contribution with Samaritan\u2019s Purse was providing \u201cpush packs,\u201d bundles of medical supplies they sent to hospitals so the doctors there had what they needed to care for their patients.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpush packs\u201d contained pharmaceuticals and casting and bandage materials, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ukrainian health system is doing amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cFor a lot of places that Samaritan\u2019s Purse goes, we are going to developing nations where health care and health care delivery is a struggle. That\u2019s not the case in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bergman went to Ukraine to lend medical aid to anyone caught up in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. But he wasn\u2019t just treating physical wounds and medical conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked with a lot of patients,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it seemed like with this deployment, even more than treating injuries or looking at their medical problems or issues, a lot of it was just having someone that could be with them and let them tell their story, and just listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drawing inspiration from tragedy<\/div>\n

\"Samaritan's
Samaritan's Purse is operating five medical sites across Ukraine and distributing critical relief supplies to aid families impacted by conflict. Daniel Bergman, a medical staff member of Samaritan\u2019s Purse, is photographed while treating a patient at one of the sites. (Courtesy of Samaritan\u2019s Purse)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He saw a lot of tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of people that are very, very hurt, that are broken,\u201d he said. \u201cWar is terrible. What people can do to each other \u2013 it\u2019s just hard to deal with sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said people felt grief and a sense of loss. Someone is trying to take their country from them, he said. Some people would ask him why they lost their home, their family or their friends. Bergman didn\u2019t have answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do know that it\u2019s OK to hurt and it\u2019s OK to feel sad,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I can love you where you\u2019re at and let you know that there is somebody who does care and wants to be a help for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bergman said he was impressed and humbled to see the resilience of the Ukrainian people. He witnessed people at refugee hubs, bus stations and train stations, asking strangers if they needed a place to stay. He said churches across the country were taking in as many people as they could feed and shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s the same in Poland,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing an amazing job with the church and the Polish people are just stepping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the war itself, Bergman said he likes to keep himself out of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that I\u2019m called to help people and to be where broken and hurting people are,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd helping them in Jesus\u2019 name. Aside from that, I don\u2019t really need to get involved in the rest of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he served in Iraq in 2017 he treated ISIS members who were taken to the hospital where he was stationed. He said he treated them with the same love, care and compassion as he would anyone else. And if he would have come across injured Russian or Ukrainian soldiers, he would have treated them the same way, he said.<\/p>\n

Bergman said his experiences abroad with Samaritan\u2019s Purse, which he\u2019s been with since 2017, have been \u201cterrible and amazing at the same time.\u201d He served in the United States Army for nearly 13 years and had served in Iraq by the time he decided he wanted out.<\/p>\n

But in 2017, he was back in a field hospital outside Mosul, Iraq. This time, he was with Samaritan\u2019s Purse, not the armed forces.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019d known of the organization through Operation Christmas Child. He jokingly told his wife, \u201cI can go back to Iraq as a missionary.\u201d A few days later, she told him she\u2019d been praying about it and thought he should go.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a series of events, like I shouldn\u2019t have been able to get the time off, a lot of things. I think God was speaking to it and saying yep, you\u2019re supposed to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said his work through Samaritan\u2019s Purse<\/a> helped him work through his own post-traumatic stress disorder and things he had struggled with for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSamaritan\u2019s Purse, they do a great job,\u201d he said. \u201cThey coordinate with a lot of people. If you\u2019re looking for a way to give, it\u2019s a great organization that\u2019s doing a lot of really good things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dan
Dan Bergman works with steel making knives in his garage on Thursday, a craft he took up at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Bergman has been going on mission trips since he was 16, he said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked as a flight nurse on helicopters. He took up knife crafting to find an outlet for relief early into the pandemic.<\/p>\n

He said his grandmother was a big inspiration for his faith in God. She worked with a man named \u201cPastor Adams\u201d who helped her smuggle Bibles past The Iron Curtain, risking arrest and imprisonment or worse.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bergman says being with the hurt, broken is his calling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[408,364,3323,950,28,714,1142,407,1147],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-charity","tag-community","tag-conflicts-and-war","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-human-interest","tag-profile","tag-religion-and-belief","tag-war"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84457,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810\/revisions\/84457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39810"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}