38-year-old defender Volodymyr Kaida, who lost his right leg in the war and received severe multiple injuries to the lower left part of his body, was confined to a hospital bed for more than a year.
He was able to get out of bed thanks to the rescue operation, which was carried out in Lviv by the specialists of the “Unbroken” center together with the American colleagues of the FACE to FACE mission.
Volodymyr Kaida comes from Donetsk region. He is a marine. He was seriously wounded in the Donetsk direction in the fall of 2022, near Maryinka. One of the shells exploded next to his brother. Volodymyr rushed to help him and immediately another flight arrived at the same place. My brother died, Volodymyr’s pelvis and both lower limbs were crushed by mine fragments.
It was impossible to save the right leg, so it was amputated in the Dnipro hospital. Later, in a number of medical institutions, Volodymyr’s left leg, which was also badly damaged, was saved. Specialists matched bone fragments and closed tissue defects. In addition, the soldier had a completely crushed hip joint. The tissues of the pelvis were infected and the wound did not heal for a long time. The difficult condition of the defender was complicated by two strokes. After six months of treatment, Volodymyr was sent to Lviv, the Center reported.
“When I first saw this patient, he was lying down and could not even speak. We were faced with a challenge: to get a patient out of bed, who has not been raised for a year and has many complications. Speech disorders, hip fractures, joint contractures and unfused fractures of the left leg,” says orthopedic traumatologist Oleg Ivaniv.
Physical therapists and speech and language specialists began working with Volodymyr. He spoke. And for the first time in many months, he went outside in a wheelchair.
In order for Volodymyr to be able to get up from his chair, stand on his left leg, and later receive a prosthesis for his right limb, the specialists had to first put his hip joint in order. For a common fracture, joint replacement is a routine operation for orthopedists. However, there was a complicated case here. Due to the long-term infection and tissue scarring, it was dangerous to carry out surgical intervention in the usual way. The infection could return. So the Center’s orthopedic traumatologists decided to operate in a non-standard way – from another point of access to the joint, where there are no scars. Lviv doctors performed this complex intervention together with American colleagues of the FACE to FACE mission. Together, they successfully performed hip joint replacement.
Two weeks after the intervention, Volodymyr stood on his feet for the first time in 14 months. After the wound heals, the defender will have a long rehabilitation ahead of him, because before the prosthetics of the right limb, he needs to work out the joints and atrophied muscles that were petrified after more than a year in bed. Doctors can say one thing for sure: Volodymyr will walk.