A nurse who was injured during an attack on a Kherson hospital and barely survived, found herself in serious condition again six months later due to an infection. The Lviv surgeons at the UNBROKEN Centre were able to save their colleague.
Natalia Skalyga, 41, has been working as a nurse at the Kherson City Hospital for over 20 years. On 1 August 2023, the enemy shelled the medical facility. The attack hit the surgical and otolaryngology departments. Natalia works in the latter.
“I don’t remember that day at all. All I felt was that I was thrown back and a loud explosion. I was giving our new doctor a tour at the time. Unfortunately, he died on the spot,” says the nurse.
As a result of the attack, Natalia was in an extremely serious condition – literally on the brink of death. The woman had multiple shrapnel wounds to her torso and face, fractures of her lower jaw and neck vertebrae. In the first three days, her colleagues doubted that Natalia would survive at all. When her condition was stabilised, she was transported from Kherson to Kyiv, where she underwent a series of surgeries.
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“I could not eat, breathe, walk. I was chained to a hospital bed with a lot of wires. My husband, who was with me every day, became my motivation and strength. It was thanks to him that I started smiling again and getting back to life,” Natalia recalls.
Back then, the woman did not know that a new threat was lurking ahead. After jaw surgery and closing the defect with a plate, she developed complications. Unfortunately, the implant did not take root and she developed osteomyelitis, an infectious bone disease. She had a high fever for four months and no one could help. The woman was in serious condition again.
The couple turned to the Lviv specialists of the UNBROKEN Centre for help. It was six months ago.
“First, we had to overcome the acute infection and get the artificial implant out, which had not taken root. When we managed to do this, we began to build an individual treatment plan. We made a titanium prosthesis with an individual temporomandibular joint and performed a major reconstructive surgery to successfully close the jaw defect,” says Oleh Kovtuniak, maxillofacial surgeon and head of the Head and Neck Centre.
Natalia is now recovering from the surgery and is back to work as a senior nurse at the Kherson hospital.