Final Post of American Killed in Ukraine: No Way Out

Jim Hill wouldn't leave his Ukrainian partner, who is battling MS
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 18, 2022 10:09 AM CDT

Jim Hill spent half of his time in the US and the other half in Ukraine, caring for his partner of more than a decade, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. It was his love for Ira that took him two hours north of Kyiv to Chernihiv, where he had found a doctor to administer medication brought from the US that would hopefully stabilize her condition, KARE reports. They were there as "indiscriminate bombing" started, as Hill informed friends on Facebook, per NPR. He noted Ira was in intensive care in a hospital with limited food and at times no heat. "We could try a break out tomorrow but Ira's mom doesnt want to," he wrote Monday. "Each day people are killed trying to escape. But bombs falling here at night." "Bombing has intensified noway out," he added Tuesday, in what would be his final post.

Hill, the second US citizen to die in Ukraine, "was waiting in a bread line with several other people when they were gunned down by Russian military (snipers)" on Thursday, sister Cheryl Hill Gordon wrote in a Facebook post, per NBC News. "His body was found in the street by the local police." Another sister, Katya Hill, tells KARE that the family received confirmation of the death though the US Embassy. She says the Minnesota native from Driggs, Idaho—who lectured about forensic psychology at universities across Europe—was going out daily to look for food for himself, Ira, and her mother, amid what he described as "a living nightmare." He was also trying to help a woman caring for four children near the hospital who provided him with internet.

"Jim's friends in Minnesota have described Jim as a dreamer and a helper—a good person gone too soon," Sen. Amy Klobuchar says in a statement, per KARE. "I share in their heartbreak." Katya says it's hard not having a body to bury; the location of her brother's remains is unknown. "The hardest thing that we're going to have to go through is not having that kind of closure," she tells CNN. But "he was not going to leave Ira's side in her condition." As she tells KARE, "it's hard to find your soulmate, and that's how he referred to Ira." The family has been unable to reach Ira or her mother and presumes their phone has run out of battery. (More Ukraine stories.)

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