Doctors restore face of wounded soldier with broken skull and hole under eye – photo

A team of Ukrainian and foreign surgeons restored the face of a soldier who was seriously wounded by a bullet at the contact line.

29-year-old Yevhen volunteered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fought on the Donetsk front. 

A year ago, he was wounded during an assault on Russian positions, as the charitable foundation Patients of Ukraine told Ukrainska Pravda Zhyttia. 

The bullet entered his skull under one eye and exited through an ear, breaking the front bones of the skull and tearing through muscles under the eye.

29-year-old Yevhen received a serious bullet wound to his face

All photos are provided by the charity foundation Patients of Ukraine

Despite his critical condition, the man crawled almost 2 kilometres to reach his brothers-in-arms. Only halfway through the ordeal did he realise how serious his injury was. 

He reached up to touch his nose, only for his fingers to pass right into his skull through a hole in the bone.

"When I touched my nose, it felt soft, and there was a hole in my skull under my eye," recalls the soldier. 

At first, Yevhen was treated in Vinnytsia. The fighter's skull was reassembled, with five titanium plates replacing missing bone fragments.

Doctors subsequently had to perform another surgical intervention because one of the plates had been rejected by the body.

The wounds on the fighter's face have already healed

Doctors removed the plate under his eye which had provoked inflammation, returned his tear duct to its proper position, and grafted skin over the affected area.

Three months have passed since the operation, and the wounds on Evhenii's face are already fully healed. 

Yevhen was operated on by doctors from Canada, the USA and Ukraine

A team of 15 foreign doctors has already operated on 30 soldiers and civilians whose faces were crippled by the war. 

Face the Future Ukraine, the charitable organisation responsible for the surgeries, will run its next mission this spring.

The doctors say they operate free of charge on people who have suffered face or neck injuries from hostilities and need reconstructive surgery. 

Background: Earlier, surgeons in Lviv helped a 44-year-old soldier who lost a leg and half of his face, requiring 69 operations.

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