"I look down and see no legs": soldier who lost both legs undergoing rehabilitation in Lviv

Oleh Bubovyi, a 57-year old Ukrainian soldier who lost both legs on the battlefield, is being rehabilitated in the city of Lviv.

He is being prepared for a prosthesis.

Source: First Medical Union of Lviv

Oleh comes from the city of Chortkiv in Ternopil Oblast. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, he worked at a locomotive depot.

When Russia started the full-scale war against Ukraine, he joined the territorial defence as a volunteer, then underwent training and started military service, first on the Kharkiv front and then on the Donetsk front in the east of Ukraine.

On 9 March of this year, during a Russian mortar attack, a projectile struck a dugout where Oleh was hiding.

"At first, Oleh did not feel pain; [he was in a state of – ed.] shock. Then he looked down at his legs and did not see them. He tried to put tourniquets on himself but did not manage to do so. He has not bled to death thanks to his comrade-in-arms, who has put tourniquets on both his limbs," the First Medical Union recalls.

His comrades-in-arms carried the injured soldier to the evacuation point, from which he was taken to a stabilisation point in Donetsk Oblast. After that, Oleh was treated in the city of Dnipro and then in the city of Ternopil.

"I thought I would die in the end, so I gave my wife my wedding ring so that it would remind her of me," says Oleh in response to the doctors’ words that he was "on the brink of death".

At the moment, he is getting ready for a prosthesis in Lviv. At first, he will have temporary and then permanent artificial prosthesis installed.

After the rehabilitation, Oleh plans to come back to a normal life and start volunteering.

Background: Roman Kovaliuk, a 28-year old Ukrainian soldier who received a shrapnel brain injury as a result of a mine detonation, is being treated in Lviv.

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