North Yorkshire man returns after helping refugees cross the border from Ukraine
Mike Heelan spent over ten days in Slovakia helping refugees who'd managed to escape Ukraine
A man from North Yorkshire who flew to Slovakia to help get people over the border from Ukraine to safety says nothing could've prepared him for what he saw.
Mike Heelan, from Harrogate, dropped everything and offered his help to Lewis Edwards - the local man we've been following in our news.
Lewis fled Kyiv after his apartment was bombed and then set up a refugee camp on the border.
On the morning of 11 March Mike left for Slovakia, arriving at Lewis' camp later that evening.
Now he's back, he has been telling Greatest Hits Radio about his experiences over there.
"They are normal working people who had lives and jobs, exactly like we have here. All the life that we have, and the expectations, and it's been ripped away from them by a lunatic. It's ultra sad.
"You have to detach a little bit. I was there when a young boy was crossing the border and getting his stuff sorted and he was told that his father had been killed. You're constantly seeing kids separated from their parents.
"It was lovely and marvellous to see the goodness and how hard people worked just to make a tiny difference. I think we must've helped about 90 people. There was a lot of good stuff done by a lot of good people and it was good to be a part of it."
Mike added that he constantly had to be on high alert while he was helping people cross the border, for fear of human traffickers taking refugees away.
He said:
"There were bad people about. Traffickers were out in force. These people have come from one disaster and can be met with another.
"If I was every working with Christina, one of the other volunteers, on the border I couldn't leave her alone. A young, pretty, Slovakian girl. That's what it was like. You had to keep your eyes out all the time.
"It's weird that all that's going on but there are still bad people about."