{"id":479900,"date":"2026-06-02T22:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479900\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:14:12","slug":"former-irish-rugby-player-travels-to-ukraine-to-deliver-medical-aid-for-soldiers-who-have-lost-limbs-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479900\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Irish rugby player travels to Ukraine to deliver medical aid for soldiers who have lost limbs \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A former Irish rugby player has travelled to Kherson, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\">Ukraine<\/a> to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to help soldiers who have lost limbs. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Irish businessman Shane Leahy is helping co-ordinate the distribution at the front line of Russian hostilities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leahy, chief executive of the global tech company Oxygen8, has co-ordinated the distribution of some \u20ac200 million in medical aid since the war in Ukraine began. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Speaking to The Irish Times on his way from Odesa to the city of Kherson in western Ukraine, Leahy said much of the aid is donated by pharmaceutical companies in the United States. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His said One4Humanity, a registered charity which he set up with risk consultant Norman Sheehan, works with partners such as Heart to Heart International and staff of Cemark \u2013 a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/crh\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/crh\/\">CRH<\/a> company \u2013 within Ukraine, to ensure direct delivery to battlefield hospitals, or to the Ukrainian ministry of health. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Among the supplies regularly delivered are drugs to be administered to soldiers who have lost limbs, to prevent them from bleeding to death within an hour of suffering catastrophic injuries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The team has also delivered some 19 hospital units made from shipping containers and co-ordinates with a range of medical professionals and charities in the field. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI guess what I do is help put the distribution network on a business footing,\u201d the former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\">Munster<\/a> player said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">This week, Leahy will be in Kherson, located just across the Dnipro river from where Russian troops launch shells and drones each day, facing daily and indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Kherson has been called the most dangerous large city in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded more than four years ago. Because of the level of attacks observers have described journeys within Kherson as a \u201chuman safari\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leahy said tens of thousands of people on both banks of the Dnipro are directly impacted by the destruction of the dams and electricity grids on top of 15 months of intense shelling and military hostilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">While in Kherson Leahy met the governor of Kherson Oblast Oleksandr Prokudin, who is expected to visit Dublin in coming weeks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">One4humanity has also been working with the Garda and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Ireland, co-ordinating supplies and the deployment of specialist medical personnel. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leahy said the number of shipping-container hospitals which can be \u201cshifted around\u201d had recently risen to 19 in Ukraine. The 20ft mobile surgical theatres facilitate urgent medical surgeries including limb reconstruction, amputations, skin grafts and other operations necessitated due to injuries caused by explosives and shelling. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Irish rugby player has travelled to Kherson, Ukraine to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,98565,61,60,11897,43,9688],"class_list":["post-479900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-crh","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-ukraine-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}