LA County search-and-rescue volunteer recounts mission to help save orphans in Ukrainian war zone

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue volunteer recently returned from Ukraine, where he was on a mission to help save young orphans.

For Mike Leum, scenes of desperate refugees trying to flee the war zone were heartbreaking to see.

Video shared by Leum on social media show displaced civilians stomping their feet to stay warm, many with nothing but the clothes on their back. But seeing their strength is sobering.

Leum praised "their steadfastness and resolve, the fact that we watched women and children walking across the border dragging a suitcase with all their worldly possessions, leaving behind everything including their husbands and sons, which was tragic."

In Ukraine, Leum, a 30-year veteran of LASD Search and Rescue, was part of a team of specially trained volunteers on a mission to rescue disabled and special-needs orphans who have been adopted by U.S. families but were trapped in the war-torn country.

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She said she and her brother were stuck in traffic for eight days until they were able to get to Poland. Her father, however, stayed behind to help fight.

He said he "went in with the mission to rescue as many orphans as possible. But in a combat zone, war situation, things change minute by minute, so there were some challenges and so some of the orphans have made it out. There's a lot more coming out as we speak."

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For Leum it ended up being less of a search-and-rescue mission and more humanitarian, helping secure supplies for the massive triage needs out on the front lines and helping treat those crossing the border.

Being there for refugees in their most desperate time of need is something he won't forget.

He said it was "absolutely tragic that this is happening, in this day and age, to innocent civilians."