The chances of the young defender’s recovery were slim. However, the boy is making great efforts to recover. Specialists of the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center in Lviv put him back on his feet.
The 22-year-old defender’s name is Georgy Raskalei. He is from Irpen near Kyiv. The boy went to defend the country at the age of 19, long before the invaders came to his hometown. News of a full-scale invasion caught the young soldier in the Donetsk direction. He remembers how his mother called him from his native Irpen and said that there was a tank near the house. And in the house – not only my mother, but also my sister and two younger brothers, the youngest of whom was only three years old at the time. George told his relatives to leave immediately. And they managed to get out of Irpen.
George was seriously wounded already this year, in May, in the Bakhmut area. An enemy mine hit the dugout where the young soldier was. Shrapnel cut through the boy’s entire body, and he suffered three brain hemorrhages.
First aid to George was given by his brothers. Then there was a stabilization point and a hospital in Dnipro, where the defender also stopped breathing. It was impossible to save the right hand, which was most torn by the fragments of the mine, so the medics had to amputate it. Mother came to Dnipro to see her seriously injured son, and since then she has been by her side all the time.
After a long struggle and extraordinary efforts, the doctors managed to save the life of the young warrior. George regained consciousness already in the capital hospital. The condition was not critical, but still serious. And the chances of recovery are slim. The guy couldn’t even sit for 20 seconds, let alone walk. He was sent to the NEZLAMNI National Rehabilitation Center for rehabilitation.
A multidisciplinary team began working with George in Lviv: surgeons, neurosurgeons and rehabilitation specialists.
“On admission, the patient’s condition was difficult. The defender needed outside help with movement and maintenance. He also needed correction of sleep and other physiological processes. Already after two weeks of our team’s work, the warrior made great progress. He already walks on his own without the help of outsiders, actively works with physical therapists every day, and gradually physiological processes return to normal. Soon he will receive a prosthesis and return to a full life,” says Andriy Androsh, George’s treating physician.
Here’s what the defender himself says about his recovery: “My classes start at eight in the morning and end at four in the evening. The doctors told me: whatever I can throw up in six months will be mine. Because then the neuroplasticity of the brain decreases, that’s why I work for ten.”
In Lviv, George is helped to recover not only by the specialists of the NEZLAMNI center, his own willpower, but also by his mother’s support. So, after recovery, the boy wants, first of all, to fulfill not his dream, but his mother’s. Because it was his mother who was his greatest support and motivation during these three months, the most difficult in his life, to get back on his feet.
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The UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center is a unique place where adults and children affected by war receive comprehensive qualified medical care. This is reconstructive surgery, orthopedics and robotic prosthetics. Victims are not only fitted with prostheses, they are made here. The center also deals with physical, psychological and psychosocial rehabilitation of injured soldiers and civilians.
On April 11, a modern rehabilitation building was put into operation here. It is 7 floors with state-of-the-art recovery equipment. Every year, 10,000 Ukrainians will be able to receive help here. And during April 11-13, the International Rehabilitation Forum was held in this building: specialists from all over the world – doctors, experts, representatives of international institutions, foundations, European countries work together to discuss, analyze and develop ways of high-quality rehabilitation of people who suffered as a result of military actions in Ukraine. More than 800 participants attended the event.
UNBROKEN project website: https://unbroken.org.ua/