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Wounded, injured, but hoping to win
10-year-old Renat was injured after two missile attacks on the Kramatorsk railway station. He, his mother and older brother tried to escape from hell to the Czech Republic, where their father had gone to work before the war.
«We were near the station, just waiting in line for volunteers to put people on the train. Suddenly, a very sharp blow, rumble, crash. Then – panic and crying. People ran, fell, some rose and ran again, and some could not… « – recalls that terrible day on April 8, Renata’s mother Olena Bilanova.
Her youngest son was severely injured in the shoulder blade, in the bone of the upper limb that connects the humerus and clavicle. Fortunately, Danylo’s eldest son was not hit by an enemy missile.
According to the woman, at first, it was thought that Renat had a severe shoulder burn. They spent several days in a local hospital, then were transferred to Dnipro and from there to Lviv. After making an X-ray, the doctors determined that there was a fragment inside that entered the boy’s body by 10 centimetres.
The operation to remove the fragment from the child was performed in Lviv. Renat is currently undergoing treatment and being bandaged. The boy is reluctant to remember that tragic day. He says that his arm hurt a lot, there was a lot of swelling and in the first days, he could not and did not want to get out of bed.
The only thing the family regrets is that they haven’t left before.
«We live in a village near Kramatorsk. At first, rockets flew over us and exploded somewhere far away. Therefore, almost until the last day, we thought it wouldn’t affect [us]. But it was getting scarier. Now there, as acquaintances say, they are bombing on their full capacity,» – the woman continues.
According to Olena Bilanova, after all that her children have been through, it is scary to be even in Lviv, especially when air-raid sirens sound. The sons immediately start to worry and run to the basement.
Renat celebrated his 10th birthday in hospital. He dreams of becoming an archaeologist, excavating the bones of a tyrannosaurus. He says that almost all his household items are related to dinosaurs. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to take anything with him but he still has a toy dinosaur. It was to the boy by his doctor in Lviv.
«I named my dinosaur Renat. He is only a few days old,» – says the patient, adding that he really missed the homemade dumplings.
In the corridor of OKHMATDYT, we meet 16-year-old Danylo Voronevskyi from the Zaporizhzhia region. The boy was hospitalized only a few days ago. He started experiencing health problems due to the stress of what he had seen. Recently, Danylo moved with his mother and younger sister moved to their relatives in Zhovkva. His father, who suffered severe explosive injuries, was also hospitalized in Lviv.
«Dad was working on a tractor in the field and came under fire. What exactly happened that day, no one knows for sure. It is said that something flew into the cabin and exploded. If it was a mine, he would not have survived. My father has a badly damaged leg, internal organs, stomach, liver, and a broken gallbladder,» – says the boy.
After that terrible incident, the man was treated for several days in a Zaporizhzhia hospital, and later transferred to Lviv.
The boy says that the situation in the Zaporizhzhia region is difficult now. Previously, Ukrainian troops were stationed in their village of Odarivka, repelling enemy attacks through the nearby villages of Orikhiv and Polohy. There were real battles. The boy once came under fire while driving with his grandfather.
After the father recovers, they will return home, because home is the best.
By the way, Danylo, who is studying at a Zaporizhzhya college to become a machine operator, has always dreamed of becoming a soldier since the fifth grade and entering the military lyceum «Defender». But his friend refused him, saying that it was difficult to study there. Danylo does not know for sure whether he plans to become a soldier, but he has such an opinion.
Complex polytraumas and operations
According to Bohdan Malovanyi, deputy medical director for surgical work at the Lviv Regional Children’s Hospital «OKHMATDYT», preparations for the mass influx of injured children began on the first day of the war. Scheduled hospitalizations were abolished, a bomb shelter and a reception room were set up, mobile surgical and trauma teams were arranged to help when needed. After realising that they could work in both planned and urgent mode, literally two weeks later, scheduled hospitalizations were resumed. Now, the hospital is working full time, all departments are involved, doctors perform all necessary operations.
The number of children admitted and treated as a result of hostilities is not stated in the OKHMATDYT. Children from Kramatorsk, Chornobaivka, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and other regions were brought to this hospital for treatment. All of them had polytraumas, namely multiple rupture injuries.
The deputy director remembers the story of each child who was treated in Lviv’s OKHMATDYT.
«In the most difficult condition was an 8-year-old boy from the Donetsk region. He was lying in bed when a shell flew into the room. The boy had multiple lesions of the internal organs, injuries to the head and limbs, his teeth were knocked out, and now needs plastic surgery. The boy was being rescued for two weeks, underwent four surgeries and was transferred abroad for complex maxillofacial operations,» – says Bohdan Malovanyi.
The deputy director of the hospital recalls that during the first two weeks of the war, the doctors, so to speak, lived at work. If before the war, patients with bullet wounds were brought there only occasionally, no more than one case in three years, it has changed enormously since the beginning of the Russian aggression, when children with severe injuries, shrapnel wounds and explosion wounds have been brought here every day.
«The first child brought to us had multiple shrapnel in the thigh. The boy and his parents were driving in a car which then was fired upon. All the metal from the door was stuck in his leg. We also brought a child who was being rescued by five surgeons for six hours. There was a day when more than 10 patients were admitted at the same time. Some were operated on, some were stabilized and transferred for further treatment abroad. Many children have been left without limbs and now need prosthetics,» – the doctor says.
According to Bohdan Malovanyi, OKHMATDYT provided assistance to a baby born in the Kyiv bomb shelter. In the hospital, there were no death related to children injured in the war. Several internally displaced doctors are helping to treat the wounded at this facility. They were temporarily hired here. These are, in particular, a neurosurgeon from the Donetsk region, an orthopedist-traumatologist, an ultrasound doctor and a resuscitator.
In addition to Renat Bilanov, mentioned at the beginning of our story, the Lviv OKHMATDYT treated several other children who were injured in a missile strike at the Kramatorsk railway station. Some of them were greeted by the Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who came as Mrs. Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The deputy director of the children’s hospital says that the star’s visit came as a real surprise to them. Doctors and patients were warned about it in just 20 minutes.
Speak, listen, help
The need for emergency psychological assistance has now increased many times over. It’s all about the war. Children not only suffer bodily injuries but are also separated from relatives, lose them, lose their pets.
According to Khrystyna Bohatyriova, a psychologist at OKHMATDYT, all children brought from areas where hostilities continue are psychologically traumatized. If they were not fired upon or abused, they could witness other atrocities by the occupiers. And this is also psychological trauma.
The expert says that naked, barefoot and hungry children were often brought to OKHMATDYT, so psychological help began with giving them the things they needed for life – clothes, shoes, dishes, food. Every child who came here was approached with a soft toy.
«Psychological work in the hospital is built around two areas. This is an individual consultation when talking to parents and the child, and group consultation, during which we draw, sculpt, read, play board games, shoot cartoons. We do something different every day,» – explains Khrystyna Bohatyriova.
Given her professional ethics, the psychologist did not comment on the specific cases she had to deal with, but said that there were children who drank water from a puddle during the occupation, sat in basements under fire for a long time, and saw the murder of their family members. There were also those who were extremely worried because they could not save their cat or dog.
«The heaviest children were evacuated from Dnipropetrovsk [region]. They were taken to traumatology and surgery. Some of them had shrapnel wounds to their backs. In addition to being physically traumatized, they were also psychologically stressed. Sometimes, I knocked on the door of the ward, came in, and then was forced to leave. Everyone calmed down, I also tried to control myself and came in again,» – said the interlocutor, adding that she did not work with the raped, they were taken abroad almost immediately.
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In order to more or less psychologically stabilize the child after the experience, at least eight to ten meetings with a psychologist are needed. Then, it becomes clear how stable the child is, whether he needs psychological help and rehabilitation.
First of all, Khrystyna Bohatyriova explains, a child who is stressed or has a psychological trauma should be hugged.
«Physical contact is very important. It’s also necessary to create opportunities for the child to say that he is worried about what he was afraid of. The behaviour of such children has a so-called delayed effect. This means that in times of stress they are organised, and therefore, when they find themselves in normal circumstances, they become aggressive and restless. This is a completely predictable reaction to abnormal circumstances. The main thing is not to miss and provide assistance on time,» – she said.
Read also: »God’s patience ran out.» A psychologist about protracted war and how it will change Ukrainians
It should be noted that the Russian full-scale aggression directly affected more than 643 children in Ukraine. The number of dead children is 232, the number of injured has increased to 431. And these are only official figures, provided by Prosecutor General… Some of the injured and wounded have been brought to Lviv since the end of February. The children who were hospitalized in Lviv children’s hospitals suffered shrapnel wounds after mine explosions and rocket attacks, some had their limbs amputated, and some suffered severe psychological trauma. So now, they need long-term treatment and rehabilitation.
Olha Shveda, translated by Vitalii Holich
Photo: Ivan Stanislavsky / Your city
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