Serhiy was in the anti-terrorist operation since its early days. On June 19, 2014, during the battle for Chervonyy Lyman, his company got ambushed and fired at with machine guns and grenade launchers. Serhiy took his first bullet when he was giving first aid to his wounded comrade, Maxym Koval. The bullet ricocheted off his helmet which threw him to the ground, and when he started rising to shoot back, a new round hit him. He was unconscious for a long time, and when he regained consciousness he saw an ant climbing up his arm and realized that he was alive. Serhiy heard voices from people approaching him but did not know who they were, because he was lying face down. He tried to reach for his two grenades to blow himself up and avoid being captured. Then he heard "Is anyone alive?" and with the corner of his eye noticed the Ukrainian insignia ... He wanted to raise his hand but could not, tried to shout "I am alive" but could only whisper. Fortunately, they noticed him and dragged him along the asphalt road. The pain was terrible, feeling as if there was a tank on his spine. He was placed on the armoured personnel carrier and taken to the helicopter, which delivered him to Kharkiv. In the Kharkiv hospital, the doctors pulled the first two bullets out. On June 20, he was airlifted to Lviv, where he started treatment in the military hospital. The diagnosis was disappointing: the effects of severe multiple thoraco-abdenomo-spine wounds, spinal injury, contusion, a severely crushed spinal cord and affected kidney. In the Lviv hospital, the doctors extracted two bullets from the spine and implanted titanium plates to hold his spine.
Serhiy was in the intensive care unit for a long time, as the wounds did not heal because of a strong inflammatory process, and he was losing protein. Then began a long recovery treatment in the rehabilitation unit. Much attention was paid to Serhiy’s psychological state as he had to be taught to make peace with his condition.
Unfortunately, the sensitivity of Serhiy’s body below the chest is still not restored and the doctors are continuing to search for further treatment options. Serhiy is dreaming of the possibility of examination in Kyiv’s Institute of Neurosurgery named after AP Romodanov, or in leading hospitals in Austria or Germany. He needs money to stay in clinics, and to travel there.
For personal courage and heroism in defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath during the Russo-Ukrainian war, Serhiy was awarded the Order For Courage III degree.
His Pryvatbank’s card number is 5168-7572-6901-1716.
Lots of photos of the injured soldiers we are helping can be found on our Facebook page in the album UCU Helps Ukraine.
Read the stories of some of our other heroes:
Kateryna Litvinjuk klitvinjuk@ukrainiancu.com
Michael Zienchuk mzienchuk@ukrainiancu.com
Roman Mlynko rmlynko@ukrainiancu.com
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