"He wants to play basketball": In Lviv, doctors fulfil the dream of a teacher who lost his wrist in the war

Valentyn Anokhin, a physical education teacher and now a soldier with the nickname Fizruk (PE teacher), is undergoing rehabilitation in Lviv, having lost his left wrist as a result of an injury at the front.  

Source: First Medical Association of Lviv on Facebook

The man is preparing to wear a prosthesis and dreams of one day throwing a ball into a basket with it.

Valentyn Anokhin, 32,  is from the village of Vilhir, Rivne Oblast. He worked as a physical education teacher at a local school. 

After the start of the full-scale invasion in the spring of 2022, the teacher was mobilised into the army. The man did not hesitate to choose his nickname, and he chose Fizruk.

Valentyn Anokhin. All photos: The First Medical Association of Lviv

In July this year, while repelling an attack by the occupiers, a tank shell exploded three metres away from Valentyn. Fizruk received multiple injuries but survived. 

"A piece of ammunition hit his buttock, tore out soft tissue and then hit his arm and broke his hand," the medical unit says. 

With his limbs restrained, the severely wounded Valentyn walked about a kilometre towards the evacuation point. 

"I was lucky. I pulled myself together and evacuated to survive," the soldier says, recalling last July.

His comrades applied a tourniquet and the heavily wounded soldier walked about a kilometre on his own feet towards the evacuation point. The wounded teacher was carried on a stretcher the rest of the way to the evacuation vehicle

He was first treated in a hospital in Kharkiv, where doctors rehabilitated his left arm and formed a stump. A vacuum-assisted wound closure device was fitted to the wound on his buttock.  

Then Valentyn was sent to Lviv. 

"For a month, our doctors changed the vacuum apparatus, and then closed the hole on the buttock with skin from the hip," the doctors wrote. 

Now the soldier is undergoing rehabilitation and preparing to wear a bionic prosthesis. 

Valentyn says that after his recovery he wants to return to work at school, and particularly, to continue teaching children to play basketball.

The teacher's dream is to throw the ball into the basket with his left bionic arm.

In order to teach children basketball again, Valentyn needs not just any prosthesis, but a bionic one

"I can see kids who were small and didn't know how to do anything. It's great to teach them and enjoy the result together," Valentyn says.

Earlier, we reported that a soldier, who was seriously injured in mid-February 2023 when a bullet lodged near his heart, had recovered and returned to the front.

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