More than 480 Ukrainian citizens have been rescued from the Maramures Mountains during four and a half years of high-risk operations since the outbreak of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, Dan Benga, head of the Maramures County Public Mountain Rescue Service (Salvamont), said on Thursday.

'More than 300 rescue missions, over 480 Ukrainian citizens rescued and 24 people who lost their lives. This is the tragic toll of the past four and a half years in the Maramures Mountains, where the war in Ukraine has led to a succession of difficult operations, carried out in conditions that have tested mountain rescuers' experience and endurance,' Benga said in a press release.

The rescue operations will be presented at SARTISS 2026, the National Conference on Emergency Medicine and Rescue in Special Situations, to be held from November 18 to 21 in Baile Felix, Bihor County. Benga will attend as a speaker, delivering a presentation entitled 'Rescue Operations in the Maramures Mountains for Ukrainians Fleeing the War'.

His presentation will focus on the experience gained in the field, the complexity of search-and-rescue operations and the challenges posed by a humanitarian situation that continues to affect Maramures County's mountainous border area.

Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, numerous Ukrainians have attempted to reach Romania by crossing isolated mountain areas, often without proper equipment or experience and unaware of the dangers along their chosen routes. Extremely low temperatures, blizzards, deep snow and steep rocky slopes have turned many of these attempts into life-threatening situations in which survival depended on the speed of the rescue response.

'For Maramures mountain rescuers, every call for help has meant mobilising substantial resources, spending hours searching in difficult-to-access terrain, travelling at night and evacuating people suffering from exhaustion, hypothermia or severe injuries. In many cases, the operations required cooperation with the Border Police, the Interior Ministry's air crews and emergency medical services. Not every mission, however, had a happy ending. Recovering the bodies of the 24 people found dead, some in ravines or extremely inaccessible areas, involved complex operations and considerable risks for the teams involved,' Benga said.

Among the cases to be presented at the conference is that of a 25-year-old Ukrainian man rescued in critical condition from the Maramures Mountains. He was located by teams from Maramures Salvamont and the Border Police, evacuated with the assistance of a helicopter operated by the Interior Ministry's General Aviation Inspectorate and taken to the 'Dr. Constantin Opris' County Emergency Hospital in Baia Mare.

The young man's testimony recounts his ordeal and the efforts of those who helped save his life.

'I am 25 and, by all the laws of nature, I should not be here today. I fled an unjust war, but I nearly met my end in the frozen ravines of Maramures, as happened to 24 other young people. By the time the Maramures mountain rescue team and the Border Police found me, and the General Aviation Inspectorate helicopter lifted me out of the mountains, my body had already given up. I arrived at the county hospital in Baia Mare with critical biological parameters. I was in a coma for weeks. My heart stopped twice. My kidneys stopped functioning. But where my body gave up, they did not. The mountain rescuers pulled me from the clutches of the mountain, and the doctors in Baia Mare literally pulled me from the clutches of death. Today I can breathe, walk and return to a normal life only because, in Romania, I met outstanding people and professionals who fought for my life harder than I could still fight for it myself,' the young Ukrainian said, according to the Salvamont statement.

His case highlights the importance of coordinated intervention, from mountain rescue and air lifting to specialised medical treatment, demonstrating how cooperation between institutions can offer a chance of survival even when the prognosis is extremely poor.

At SARTISS 2026, Benga will also discuss the operational aspects of these missions, including team organisation, risk management, logistical challenges and the decisions that must be made in the field, often under extreme pressure.

The conference brings together specialists in emergency medicine, mountain and cave rescue, aviation and other emergency response structures, providing a forum for analysing complex cases, exchanging experience and strengthening professional cooperation. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Leontin Cupar; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)