16-year-old Nikita from Bakhmut. The boy left the house to collect water when the shelling began. A 3-centimeter fragment was lodged in the boy’s chest cavity – just a few millimeters from the aorta.
It happened on January 31. 2 people died, 4 were injured, including Nikita. He received a severe mine-explosive injury with numerous fractures of his arms and legs, as well as damage to his left lung. Nikita was urgently transported to Dnipro by ambulance. Local doctors managed to stabilize the boy’s condition.
He was then transported by evacuation train to Lviv, to the NEZLAMNI National Rehabilitation Center. To save the boy’s life, our specialists performed two operations.
First, a fragment from the chest cavity was minimally invasively removed, and later – small fragments from soft tissues, the thigh, and the shoulder. This was done by a team of pediatric surgeons headed by Andrii Dvorakevich, head of the Surgery Center of St. Nicholas Hospital, head of the surgery department, Oleksandr Kalinchuk, and surgeon Larisa Shevchenko. Cardiac surgeons led by Oleksandr Yachnik were on duty in the operating room in case of complications. The anesthesiology component was provided by the specialists of the department of anesthesiology and intensive care, in particular, its head, Yarema Beznisko.
Currently, Nikita’s life is no longer threatened by injuries. However, the boy has a long recovery process ahead of him. To do this, rehabilitation specialists work with him for several hours every day. Nikita himself says: he hopes that he will recover very soon. He dreams of victory and returning home.
Due to Russian aggression, hundreds of people suffer every day, so in order to make their treatment and rehabilitation comfortable and accessible in Ukraine, the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center is being created in Lviv. Here, a multidisciplinary team works with every Ukrainian, providing surgical, physical, psychological and psychosocial professional assistance. Thanks to the support of donors, a prosthetics workshop was opened and bionic prostheses are installed.