'I am fine': Whispered words are a ray of hope on Ukraine children's ward

By Vitalii Hnidyi

KHARKIV, Ukraine – The physician leaned over a small boy mendacity on a mattress in a youngsters’s hospital within the northern Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkiv and requested: “Little Vova, how are you?”

“I'm wonderful,” got here the hardly audible reply. “High-quality,” the physician repeated loudly, glad by what he heard.

Medics stated Vova was hit within the head by a bullet throughout preventing within the first few days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, considered one of a number of youngsters introduced into the hospital to be handled for shrapnel and bullet wounds.

Kharkiv, which has shut historic and social ties to Russia, has seen among the heaviest preventing for the reason that battle started on Feb. 24.

Ukrainian regional police official Serhiy Bolvinov stated on Tuesday that 170 civilians had been killed throughout Kharkiv area for the reason that begin of Russia’s invasion, together with 5 youngsters.

Russia denies concentrating on civilians and says its forces are engaged in a “particular navy operation” in Ukraine to destroy its neighbour’s navy capabilities and take away what it regards as harmful nationalists in Kyiv.

Ukraine and its allies name Russia’s actions a brutal invasion that has killed a whole bunch of civilians. Condo blocks in Kharkiv and elsewhere have been decreased to rubble, cities have been evacuated and a few 2 million folks have fled the nation.

On the pediatric neurosurgery centre of the town’s essential accident and emergency hospital, eight-year-old Dima Kasyanov lay unconscious on an intravenous drip with a tube popping out of his mouth.

His father, Sergiy, confirmed Reuters an X-ray picture on his cell phone that he stated was of a bit of shrapnel from an incoming shell that had lodged on the base of Dima’s cranium.

“The shrapnel entered by way of the jaw and lodged itself within the neck, on the prime of the vertebral column. It was yesterday. He's eight,” he informed Reuters. The kid’s mom sobbed quietly subsequent to him.

Sergiy Kasyanov stated the shell struck the household’s house and everybody ran for security. He stated his mom had additionally been wounded and was in intensive care with damaged ribs and injury to her backbone.

“However the baby, he suffered the worst damage.”

Oleksandr Dikhnovskiy, the physician who heads the centre, stated the unit had operated on 4 youngsters with shrapnel or bullet wounds up to now.

“Sadly one little woman died yesterday. She was admitted on the primary evening of the … invasion of our nation.”

He stated Dima’s remedy can be advanced.

“The surgical procedure could be very difficult from a technical standpoint and we are actually stabilising him to have the ability to conduct the surgical procedure.”

Within the surgical procedure theatre, a Reuters reporter heard the rumble of a distant explosion.

“That is how we work every single day, conducting surgical procedure beneath bombardment,” stated one of many nurses.

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