Eastern Ukraine (CNN) As Simon Johnsen regained consciousness in a cloud of smoke, he heard a loud ringing in his ears. He checked to make sure he still had all his body parts.
His colleague Pete Reed was dead next to him, as was the civilian from Ukraine whose injuries they wanted to treat.
It was midday on Thursday, February 2, in Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and a Russian missile had landed just meters from where the two were about to provide assistance.
Johnsen, a paramedic from Norway, and a group of other volunteers had just arrived at the scene.
Speaking to CNN, they describe the attack as a prime example of how Russia attacks medics and front-line responders in so-called “double taps”: hitting a target, waiting a few minutes for first responders to arrive, then hitting the same spot again.
Video footage from the scene, shown to CNN, shows the incoming missile hitting Reed’s team’s makeshift ambulance.
Two cell phone stills show the moments before and after the missile attack on the ambulance. The first image shows the missile hurtling past a burned-out vehicle; the second shows its effect.
Munitions experts have examined the video and identified the weapon as an anti-tank missile, Reed’s wife Alex Kay Potter told CNN after returning from Ukraine.
Potter believes the attack on the rescuers was the Russian military’s intention and says their ambulance was clearly marked.
“It wasn’t just a random artillery doubletap — they were being pursued,” she says. “They were very targeted.”
Despite numerous strikes against medical personnel and facilities during the war, Russia has denied targeting civilians. The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Reed, a former US Marine, came to the scene through the medical aid organization Global Outreach Doctors.
Johnsen and another colleague from Norway, Sander Sørsveen Trelvik, had traveled to Ukraine as volunteers with another humanitarian organization, Frontline Medics. Both were injured in the blast but survived.
“It was a normal day in Bakhmut,” says Johnsen after his evacuation to Norway. His team arrived early in the morning and ran a mobile clinic, conducting free exams and dispensing medicines.
He says there was fire coming in and out, but it wasn’t “much hotter” than usual.
The streets of Bakhmut are witnessing some of the fiercest fighting since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, with soldiers on both sides dubbing the city a “meat grinder” as hundreds die in combat every day.
Pete Reed, pictured in an undated photo, was killed in the attack.
Responding to a call for help
The team was sitting drinking coffee with other volunteers when an urgent call for help arrived. “We drove there in our vehicle and Pete’s team drove in their vehicles,” says Johnsen.
It was very quiet when they entered the street, but they immediately noticed two burned-out vehicles. The injured woman’s car was completely destroyed, her husband was holding her head.
Johnsen says they don’t know what happened to her because they didn’t have time to gather information. “I had just sat down with the patient … I was about to start examining her and then we were met.”
Reed and his team, along with Johnsen and Trelvik, were next to the injured woman when the attack took place.
Immediately after the explosion, Johnsen and Trelvik ran for cover amidst mortars. They were followed by a photographer commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, Emanuele Satolli, and his team.
The group tried to take cover in a house, but the door was locked.
Johnsen suffered head trauma from the shelling. He lost hearing in his right ear and his left ear was also damaged. Johnsen and Sander Sørsveen Trelvik had set out for Ukraine as volunteers. Both were injured in the blast but survived.
Although shaken, Johnsen recalled realizing that his own injuries couldn’t be too severe “because I was on point and breathing and conscious”.
Satolli remembers asking the Norwegians if they need help disembarking. “We stayed in the courtyard and our security man said ‘we have to go’. So we asked the two paramedics if they wanted to come with us, and they said yes,” recalls Satolli.
The group moved toward Satolli’s car. But in the confusion, Trelvik went the wrong way and turned back to the blast site.
A photo taken by Satolli later showed Trelvik getting to his car – bloodied and wide-eyed, his pants torn.
“We were waiting for him in the car and Simon (Johnsen) started screaming ‘come here, come here’ and then I took this picture,” says Satolli.
He says looking at the photo now makes him “very sorry” for Trelvik.
“He’s a young man and he volunteered. I think it was a very traumatic experience for him… I hope he will recover not only physically but also mentally,” Satolli told CNN from Turkey.
Capture the explosion on camera
Another Frontline Medics volunteer, Erko Laidinen from Estonia, recorded the rocket explosion on his phone.
He told CNN he was in the Frontline Medics vehicle when the missile struck and filmed the team on his cell phone through the car window.
His phone was thrown from the car in the attack, but continued to record the sound of incoming shelling for the next 20 minutes. He jumped out of the vehicle unharmed and hid behind a tree, assuming his vehicle would be next, while he waited for the smoke to clear.
Separated from the others, Laidinen eventually took shelter in a five-story apartment. When there was a two-minute pause, he ran away, deeper into Bakhmut – street-to-street battle – and away from the blast site.
Erko Laidinen told CNN he was in the Frontline Medics’ vehicle when the missile struck and filmed the team on his cell phone through the car window.
He spotted a house with a smoking chimney and ran to it. The door was open and he ducked into the basement for about half an hour to catch his breath.
Laidinen knew he had to get to his team’s hub to access the internet and let people know he was alive. He asked a local to take him to the Ukrainian military. A half-hour interrogation ensued while the military investigated his identity. Luckily, says Erko, the commander spoke English.
The military drove him to the hub, he said. That’s when he learned that his fellow Frontline Medics had been evacuated by Satolli’s team.
At this point it was about 4pm local time in Bakhmut and it was starting to get dark. Driving in Bakhmut at night means driving without lights or risking a Russian attack.
Luckily for Laidinen, a group from Kiev came to the Hub to get something they had forgotten and offered to take him away from the besieged city.
“So much work and help is still needed in Ukraine”
Both Johnsen and Trelvik are back in Norway and continue to receive medical treatment.
Trelvik had suffered burns and shrapnel wounds to his body and both legs and arms.
Johnsen suffered head trauma. He lost hearing in his right ear and his left ear was also damaged.
However, Johnsen is certain he will return to Ukraine as soon as he is fit again.
“I’m not stupid, I know the risk. And yes, it was close and I could have lost my life and everything. But so much work and help is still needed in Ukraine,” he says.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the date of the Bakhmut missile attack. It was February 2nd.