Woman loses family in "Easter" shelling: 10 doctors in Lviv have been rescuing woman with massive injuries
Diana Krechetova, Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia - 1 August 2022
40-year-old Oksana from Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, has lost her entire family and received massive injuries due to Russian shelling. Doctors barely managed to save her life.
Source: First Medical Association of Lviv.
The strike, which subsequently took the lives of Oksana's husband and 13-year-old son, happened on Easter.
"At that time, there were four of them in the yard: Oksana with her husband, son and grandmother. It was quiet on the street, the air-raid sirens did not sound, until suddenly a rocket flew by. Oksana was thrown aside by the blast. She remembers only the child's scream," the doctors retell.
The boy's father died in front of his son. After that, the grandmother, having shrapnel in her neck, carried her wounded grandson and Oksana to the cellar. There, the family waited for rescue workers for three hours, losing blood, because Russian rocket shrapnel hit the boy right near the heart. His mother sustained numerous injuries.
"The rescue workers managed to get the women and the boy out of the line of fire. Oksana was taken to the hospital in Kramatorsk, and her son and grandmother were taken to Sloviansk. There they tried to save the son in the intensive care unit, and the grandmother had shrapnel removed," the staff of the First Medical Association of Lviv retell.
Doctors were not able to save the boy. Oksana got to the hospital in a serious condition with an injured chest and severe injuries to her limbs.
"The left hand was the most affected. The woman was immediately operated on: the internal bleeding of the abdominal cavity was stopped and the massive wounds were stitched up," the doctors reported.
Ten doctors from the first surgical department of the Surgery Centre, as well as traumatology and orthopaedics of the Trauma Centre worked to save the woman's hand.
Oksana underwent six operations: doctors stitched up the soft tissue wounds, transplanted skin, and, in particular, performed a complex plastic surgery to move part of the soft tissue of the upper arm to the area of the injured elbow.
The woman learned of her son’s death two days after saying goodbye to him. She says that all that time her maternal instinct told her that something was wrong.
Long-term rehabilitation awaits Oksana to restore the functionality in her damaged hand.
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