Jed Danahay

Growing up on a farm in Nanango, Jed Danahay spent days running carefree in the forest and playing with his pet fox. The news of his death in a foreign war zone, among people he felt called to help, was received with disbelief.  

The 27-year-old was on his way to rescue injured soldiers on Ukraine's frontline in Izyum, when he was killed by Russian fire.

A memorial for the young adventurer, who had been to 27 countries by the time of his death in August, was held in Kingaroy on October 7.

His brother Eric Danahay told the gathering he consoled himself with the knowledge that Jed was helping people and doing what he felt was right.

"There are people alive today because of Jed. Men, women and children who live to see another day because of him," he said. "If more people in the world were like him then it would be a far better place."

Volodymyr Shalkiviskyi, a diplomat from the Ukrainian embassy in Canberra attended the service and expressed similar thoughts.

"In the modern world we need people like Jed," he told guests, adding that the young man would be remembered in Ukraine as a "prominent hero" of the war.

"As I travelled here from Canberra and I was looking around at the countryside - at how lush and beautiful Australia is - I wondered what makes a person who has such a full life here, sacrifice it and go and help people he didn't know? 

 "It's about caring and something we really value in people - character. Australia and Ukraine are oceans away from each other, but we share these values and principles that make our life meaningful.

"We have a saying in Ukraine that a person is alive as long as the memory of him is alive. so, we will do our best to preserve Jed's memory in Ukraine."

With the family's permission we publish the eulogies presented by Jed Danahay's mother Bernice, brother Eric and Marta a soulmate left behind in Poland.

Bernice Danahay's tribute to her son Jed.

I would like to start my speech by thanking the Honourable David Littleproud for getting Jed home to me in time for this service. David you have gone above and beyond for our family and Jed.

Jed is the youngest of my three sons, he was born on New Year's Eve in 1994.

He was always a happy baby and boy could he really eat, a trait that continued through his entire life. We all still remember him eating an entire family dinner box from McDonalds by himself.

He had two speeds, flat out or asleep.

He used to help me around the farm, and he always loved the variety of animals we had as pets. His favourite pet was the fox which he grew up with. They would bounce on the trampoline together and when Jed was having a nap it would lay next to him.

When he was small, he had a pony. She was patient and slow, but he decided she couldn't go fast enough so started tapping her with a stick. I said to him she'll buck you off.

He said, "No she won't." He rode her out for three bucks before coming off unhurt. He was only four-years-old.

He graduated to a Pee Wee 50 and looked like he had been riding it his whole life.

In 2001 we moved to Queensland when Jed was six years old and bought a small property out near the East Nanango forest. The boys loved to explore, and we would go for long walks in the forest together.

His chosen sport was golf. When he practiced on the lawn the distances he could hit became longer and longer until we were searching the state forest for his lost balls.

When we visited my Uncle and Auntie in New South Wales, they would take the old practice balls down to the park and hit them across the Murray river into Victoria. Jed would joke that he could hit a ball into another state. Our pet Galah still yells "Good shot'' from those early practice days.

At 15 he got a job at the local service station and saved his money to buy his dream car, a 1976 xb ford falcon. He said he might not have the most expensive car at school, but he had the coolest. This was followed by getting an XC. He was a Ford man all the way.

Jed also taught himself to play guitar and read music, he used to tell me that he might not be great at it, but really enjoyed it.

Jed went to Nanango State School and then onto Nanango High School where he achieved fantastic results and gained entry into university. To do a double degree in business and engineering.

University was not to Jed's liking however. Sitting indoors for another four years was never going to happen and he applied to join the Australian army and successfully completed all their tests. The recruiters happily talked to him about Duntroon, unfortunately he didn't pass the medical due to his flat feet.

Jed always had a Plan B and decided that he would get a job and travel the world.

I paid for his first Contiki Tour that took him through most of Europe. Then Jed winged it on his own and decided that he would visit the Swedish friends he met in UNI.

While there he applied for a job in the north of Sweden looking after a dog sledding team. Jed spent a fair while in the north of Sweden alternating between sledding in the winter months and farming, cutting, baling and cattle work in the brief periods of summer when the days stretched for nearly 24 hours.

Jed loved dog sledding, he told me it was the best job ever, he loved being outside and spending time in the forest with the dogs.

Jed returned to Australia for a brief stint before he once again set off to travel. This became a pattern in Jed's life. He would roam the world before returning to tell us all about his adventures. We had our very own Indiana Jones in the family.

He backpacked through Scotland and around Loch Ness, he renovated houses in England, he visited Canada, and he journeyed through America and the Grand Canyon.

He spent time in Lebanon, Egypt, and he especially liked Poland.

Jed took me on my first trip overseas, we took a cruise around the Mediterranean and then caught trains through different parts of Europe.

When Jed did return to Australia, he was always happy to help out. He took odd jobs and never stayed in anything that didn't suit him. His last job before he left was as an excavator diver on Groote Eylandt NT. Jed had six tickets to drive different types of machinery.

He was good at whatever he turned his hands to, he could fix anything with duct tape and spit. He was also a great cook and made the world's best ice cream cakes.

When he was in Australia, Jed along with his brother Jake, were both members of the South Nanango rural fire brigade. One of the medics Jed served with works with a charity that is donating life saving equipment to Ukraine, including a fire engine that bears Jed's name in his honour.

Jed was always looking to learn and improve; he studied at the European Security Academy in Poland and completed many courses in a variety of subjects. He spoke of one day doing maritime security, he said it would allow him to travel the world on someone's else's dollar.

Jed had dreams of later in life becoming a farmer in Canada. Jed wanted a simple honest life and cabin in the woods.

He also applied to join a conservation society working to stop illegal poaching in Africa. Jed was accepted but unfortunately could not go as a month before leaving he injured his knee and could not run the 20kms with his pack on. He was looking forward to living in the African bush for six to eight weeks at a time and learning how to track.  

One of the last things he did was remodel my entire kitchen, as a surprise for me when I got back from visiting friends in Victoria.

When Jed left Australia for the last time, he visited friends in Poland, did some hiking and visited some museums before crossing the border to provide humanitarian aid. He spent time clearing rubble, driving supply trucks and he would frequently cross back to Poland to buy supplies   from his own money to donate.

Jed was asked multiple times to join the frontline fighters, but each time he declined as he wanted to help people. Jed however did end up on the front lines as a driver for a multinational group of medics.

Jed's job was to drive and keep the vehicles running under the most difficult situations. He would help stabilise the injured soldiers or civilians before transporting them back to a hospital. He also received medical training from the medics in his unit.

Jed's commander said he once saw him fix one of the cars with some scrap metal he found lying around.

I spoke with one of Jed's comrades who explained he was the best driver in the squad and the incredible dedication he had. They didn't just treat soldiers, but civilians including women and children. Jed's group of medics helped lower the death rate among the wounded from 80 percent to nearly 30 percent.

He had a close call a month before his death and was in hospital with a concussion, but as soon as he was released, he was back at his job.

When I remember Jed, I think back to when the boys were little and we were watching the Leonid meteor shower while laying on an old mattress with a blanket in the back of our ute. Jed was just like one of these meteors, he burned so brightly, but was only here for a short while.

On Ukrainian Independence Day, the 24th of August, Jed was killed by Russian fire when driving his medical vehicle towards people who were injured.

Eric Danahay's tribute to his younger brother. 

I want to open with a quote from Henry David Theroux. 

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Jed wasn't one of these men, he lived the life he wanted to and refused to compromise on his own happiness. I remember a time when Jed had just finished another job and I asked why he had left it. He said that it wasn't for him and it didn't bring him any joy.

I pushed back on this and said that he needed to consider getting a full-time office job that was a bit easier on him. Jed told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to do that.

If a job was not what Jed was looking for, he moved on. Everyone could benefit from a mindset like this. I look back on this conversation now, my job at the time made me miserable. I hated it and I was essentially asking Jed to be miserable as well. I should have been listening to him instead of trying to get him to listen to me.  

Jed lived the life he wanted to, he did what he knew was right and didn't worry about things he didn't have to. He had a dark sense of humor and if you didn't know him, he could come across, shall we say a little abrasive. But at his heart he was an optimist, he always expected the best out of himself and others. Jed spent his life helping other people, be they family, friends or even complete strangers.

When he was in Australia he showed Gemma and I how to weld, he fixed nearly every fence on our property and he installed a wash bay for Gemma's horses. He did all this out of the kindness of his heart, god knows we would never have been able to do it without him.

He was a fantastic cook, which came as a huge surprise to all of us. I remember him standing in the kitchen, all 6 foot 4 inches, covered in tattoos with a buzz cut telling me the best way to get the Nutella to melt. And as a little anecdote for everyone, one of Jed's strongest held personal beliefs was that mint had no place in food.

Like mum, Jed took me on my first trip overseas, I visited him in Sweden and he took me sledding through the forests. From there he took me through Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and France. We had no real plan and just drove from place to place visiting things that took our interest. We did get on each others nerves, but these are some of my fondest memories of Jed.

I have never been more scared than Jed driving along the Autobahn in his beat up old Skoda station wagon. I was sure the speed would vibrate it the car apart and even at the speed we were doing I watched trucks tear past us in the rain.

Jed was also very thrifty, when we went through a toll tunnel in Norway he complained loudly how he was only visiting so it shouldn't matter.

We slept in his car one night as he refused to pay for a motel due to the cost - our water bottle froze that night. He wouldn't spend any money he didn't have to and could make the smallest amount last him through an entire country. He joked that due to the work he had done in the last year he should be getting a significant tax return and sure enough when sorting through his affairs we found out that he lodged that tax return from the front line in Ukraine.

He also sent me a happy birthday message from the frontline, I won't repeat exactly what he said, but even from one of the worst places on earth he still thought of his family.

Jed was keen to offer advice on anything, and for those that knew him he had strong opinions on every subject and was happy to share them with you even if you didn't ask

When I was trying to pick a ring to propose to my partner Jed gave me a suggestion of one that was made of the same metal as the space shuttle.

When I asked him why that made it good, he told me that when Gemma shot me down it would survive re-entry.

Jed had a love of cars and was constantly collecting and pulling them apart. I remember telling Gemma that she had been officially inducted into the family when we looked out the front to see two beat up old ford's on our front lawn.

I don't really know what to say to do Jed's life justice, the words I say now seem small compared to the man he was. But at the end of everything, Jed was my brother and the best person I knew. If you ever needed help all you had to do was ask and he would come running.

If more people in the world were like him then it would be a far better place. Very few people have the level of impact on others that Jed did. He was a wonderful person and I will strive to be more like him for the rest of my life. Nothing will ever be the same without him.

However, I try to console myself with the knowledge that Jed was helping people. He was doing what he wanted and what was right. There are people alive today because of Jed - men, women and children who live to see another day because of him.

Thank you.

From Poland with love

Hello everyone, I'm Marta from Poland.

I met Jed during one of his security courses in Europe. We were from different continents, cultures, languages, ages, beliefs and dreams.

Yet we had so much fun together. I remember us talking and writing for hours. Laughing at the same things, travelling across Europe, watching photos from our journeys, making plans. I've taken you to the bunkers in Poland and lakes in Czech Republic. You have showed me cities in my own country.

Despite your wild nature you had fun watching films with me, playing guitar on my couch, singing Colter Wall, airsoft shooting, cooking and doing laundry. I know you were a rebel, but I got to know you as well as a caring, sensitive man.

Despite all the differences between us we have shared something special. We stayed friends no matter if you were sick, had an operation in Australia, had no internet in Sweden or were stuck in Queensland because of the pandemic.

I was always happy to have you close, but throughout all those years I have learned to let you go. To say goodbye every time an adventure was calling you.

Someone once said: if you love something set it free. If it comes back it's yours. If not it was never meant to be.  

Thank you for always coming back to me. Thank you for coming back in 2019 and risking living together, when we were able to turn our fascination into strong friendship. Thank you for coming back in 2022 just to eat your favourite burgers in Poznań and then again in June, to say goodbye before leaving for Ukraine. It meant a lot to me.

It is very hard now to say goodbye to you this one last time.

I am proud of your decisions, your will to help others, even if it meant risking life. Loosing you is the most devastating thing that ever happened to me.

I will always keep you in my heart.