Andriy Zhilin is 26, from a village in Donetsk region. While defending Ukraine from the Russian invaders, a fighter blew up two mines in the Bakhmut area. He is currently being treated and preparing for prosthetics at the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center.
When the enemy started the war in 2014, Andriy was still a teenager, and fighting even within his native region seemed distant to him. However, on February 24, 2022, the young man felt the full reality of the threat. He left his job as a driver and joined the territorial defense. Already in the ranks of the Armed Forces, Andriy fought first in Kharkiv Oblast, and then in his native Donetsk Oblast, where he was wounded. This happened this year in August in the direction of Bakhmut, in the battles for Klishchiivka.
“We had to move from one position to another, so I went to scout. I seem to step on “clean” ground – and blow myself up on a mine. I lose coordination, fall and hit another mine with my shoulder blade. I’m blowing myself up again,” Andrii says.
He lost part of his foot, put a tourniquet on himself, but could not walk. So he lay for hours in the middle of the Donetsk steppe. “There are neither people nor trees. Only drones fly overhead, and there is nowhere to hide. Then I felt intense fear and thought: I really want to live, I haven’t done so much yet,” the defender says about his feelings and awareness of hopelessness.
Despite everything, the brothers managed to find, extract and evacuate Andrii. At the time of admission to the Kharkiv hospital, the tourniquet stayed on the soldier’s leg for 11 hours. So the foot had to be amputated.
For further treatment and rehabilitation, Andrii was referred to Lviv, to the NEZLAMNI center. Here, the defender underwent a second amputation. Every second soldier who has lost part of a limb has to go through this operation. Because only reamputation makes it possible to form the correct stump for installation of a modern functional prosthesis.
“Here at the Center, they always take care of you, they constantly invent new methods of rehabilitation and various activities. And you feel like you are in a big, friendly family, and not just lying in a ward and being left alone with your problem,” Andrii shares his impressions.
Currently, the defender is recovering from a second amputation and working with physical therapists. In order for the specialists to begin prosthetics, the patient’s stump must be completely healed. Andrii does not make plans for the distant future. Currently, his dreams are close and within reach. This is to put on a prosthesis as soon as possible, return to the formation and once and for all expel the enemy from his native Donetsk region.
Hundreds of people suffer every day due to Russian aggression, so in order to make their treatment and rehabilitation comfortable and accessible in Ukraine, in Lviv, at the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center, a multidisciplinary team works with every Ukrainian, providing surgical, physical, psychological and psychosocial professional help Thanks to the support of donors, a prosthetics workshop was opened and bionic prostheses are installed, as well as a new modern rehabilitation building: it is 7 floors with the most modern rehabilitation equipment. Every year, 10,000 Ukrainians will be able to receive help here.