A surgeon rescues kids injured by Ukrainian fire
In Donetsk kids have long been avoiding playgrounds – the risk of stepping on a mine there is too high. Yet the number of children injured by mine blasts or artillery shelling grows every day. Doctors may perform up to 8 emergency operations with no breaks to save wounded kids.
Yevgeniy Zhilitsyn is an orthopedic surgeon. For over 20 years he has been carefully teaching his little patients to take the first few steps again. But after the outbreak of hostilities in 2014, he hardly performs any scheduled operations. For the most part of the time, it is mine blast injury victims that undergo treatment. Yevgeniy says that many of his colleagues have fled Donbass – the city is constantly shelled, there is no water and sometimes doctors have to work without pay. But the awareness that the future of these kids depends on him drives Yevgeniy to continue working at DPR Trauma Center. ‘How can I go when they feel bad?’ he asks himself.