By Oleksandr Handziy
4.29.2015
Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine
A soldier with the 95th Airborne Brigade, 29-year-old Oleksiy Kurhan from the village of Stara Chortoryya, in Lubarskyi district, Zhytomyr [region] hit a mine on March 28, 2015. From the explosion, the soldier lost his right foot. His parents are gathering 10,000 dollars for treatment and a prosthesis.
“He passed his military service in the Airborne Brigade and that’s why in August of 2014, after a month and a half of preparation he went to Donbas with the 95th [Brigade]. On that ill-fated day, Oleksiy went to his post in the morning and hit a mine. The area was habitable, but had not all been examined, and that’s why it happened,” stated Oleksiy to the Gazeta.ua correspondent.
The soldier’s amputation was done in an Artemivsk hospital. From there, Oleksiy was taken to the Mechnikov [clinical] hospital in Dnipropetrovsk. Now the doctors of the Vinnytsia military hospital are trying to preserve the rest of the soldier’s foot.
“They conducted one extensive surgery and three minor ones. They sewed it together and screwed it to the bones with spokes. Now they slowly tighten the muscles close to the bone, because everything is torn. They put in a reservoir to extract mucus, which is released there. The device continuously pumps, it creates a vacuum there. Thus, the muscle pulls. Once a week [the medical personnel] change the sponge, then go inside the wound. Every two to three hours they give [me] painkillers. All the nerve endings are all over the top there. When it begins to pinch, it is very unpleasant. I do not really walk. To the door of the [hospital] room or to the toilet, this is an ordeal. It starts with a strong pulsation, then [the leg] becomes flushed, then it starts to strongly cramp up. Depending on how the leg heals up and whether it can be saved, I will have to have a prosthesis made. I still plan to run and do not regret anything. I think, the most important is that I’m alive,”-Oleksiy states enthusiastically.
Source: Gazeta.ua
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