Year Two · The Second Annual Campaign
Four ambulances for two hundred thousand people.
On a Tuesday night in August, my twelve-year-old sister collapsed with violent vertigo. My mother reached for the phone, and the operator’s answer was honest and terrifying: there were only four ambulances in all of Burgas. We waited through the night, hoping it wouldn’t get worse. The next morning we decided: never again would a family in our city have to hang up and wait.
Last year, the community bought one. This year, we go again.
After last year’s campaign successfully funded a fully equipped ambulance for the city fleet, this new GoFundMe campaign continues the effort, toward another vehicle and the medical equipment it carries.
Live totals from the GoFundMe campaign, refreshed every minute.
A vertigo emergency in a city that had to hang up.
My sister is twelve. She was visiting family in Burgas when, without warning, she was hit by violent vertigo, the room spinning, unable to stand, sick and terrified. My mother did what any parent would do: she reached for the phone and called for an ambulance.
The voice on the other end of the line was calm, but the message was chilling. “Sorry,” the operator said. “There are only four ambulances in all of Burgas. You have to wait.” Then the call ended.
We live in a city of 200,000 people. On that night, we realized that our safety net was held together by just four vehicles. This isn’t a failure of the medics, who are heroes, but a failure of equipment. We decided that night that we wouldn’t just wait for the next time. We would act.
That decision became the first campaign. Last year, our community came together across Burgas and beyond, and raised enough to purchase a fully equipped ambulance for the city fleet. The vehicle arrived with the medical equipment inside it: defibrillators, stretchers, trauma kits, and the gear medics need to save lives in the first critical minutes. It was handed over ready to serve, and it has been answering calls in Burgas ever since.
It was proof of what a community can do when a shared need becomes a shared project, that a city of 200,000 doesn’t have to accept four ambulances as its ceiling. People who had never met gave what they could: five leva, fifty, a share with a few words attached. It added up to a vehicle that today sits in a depot waiting for the next emergency instead of a gap in the roster.
Last year, that first campaign operated under the umbrella of Български червен кръст, the Bulgarian Red Cross. This year, Burgas Response branches off as its own effort, separate in structure, but carrying the exact same mission. Read more about last year’s success.
This is a new GoFundMe campaign, separate from last year’s effort, and the second year of the initiative. The goal remains the same: continue strengthening emergency medical response in Burgas, one vehicle at a time.
From the Burgas community
Campaign Lead & Community Organizer
Response Times
Adding one vehicle reduces average response windows across the central district and the outer districts.
Modern Gear
Fully equipped with modern defibrillators and trauma stabilization kits for immediate, on-scene care.
Night Safety
Ensures that when night-shift staff are stretched thin, there is always a reserve unit ready to roll.
Join your community.
Large or small, every donation brings another ambulance closer to the streets of Burgas.