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For three days, the heavily wounded defender could not get to the evacuation point - because of the shelling!

With the last of his strength - with a shattered arm, a massive wound on his lower back and a damaged lung - he finally got out of the hell and the doctors started to save him. Now Lviv surgeons at St. Luke's Hospital need to remove the fragment that hit the lung and stuck in the soldier's chest wall. And they plan to perform this operation in the least traumatic way for the patient.

Ruslan Chaika, 32, from the village of Myloshevychi, Lviv region, was mobilized into the army in the spring of 2022. He was assigned to the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after Lieutenant General Marko Bezruchko, where he became a combat vehicle commander.

Ruslan was seriously injured this year in early July. It happened in a landing on the border of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovs'k regions. Enemy drones dropped 4 shells on the defender. Numerous fragments crippled his arm and lower back, and one damaged his lung and stuck in his chest.

Because of the constant shelling, wounded Ruslan could not get out of the landing. He stayed there for 2 days. And only on the third day he waited for a relative lull, left the forest belt and spent more than a day getting to the evacuation point.

From the stabilization center, the wounded man was first taken to Zaporizhzhia, and from there to Vinnytsia, where he underwent surgery on his hand, which was actually broken. Then he was sent to Lviv, to St. Luke's Hospital, which is part of the UNBROKEN ecosystem.

Local surgeons have to remove the fragment stuck in the chest. If the fragment is not removed in time, it can shift, injure the lung again or cause an infection. The team of St. Luke's Hospital will perform this thoracoscopic surgery minimally invasively, i.e. in the least traumatic way. The surgeons will remove the fragment using a laparoscopic rack - with only a few punctures and without additional trauma to the patient.

*St. Luke's Hospital is a member of the UNBROKEN ecosystem, where more than 20,000 wounded Ukrainians have received treatment since the beginning of the great war.

80% of all surgical interventions at our institution are performed using the laparoscopic stand. This minimally invasive method of surgery has significant advantages over open surgery: less tissue trauma, reduced postoperative pain and faster recovery.

For a long time, our doctors have been working with two racks, but 3 months ago, one of them broke down and is beyond repair. Therefore, the surgical team of St. Luke's Hospital is in dire need of a new modern laparoscopic stand. After all, doctors cannot perform the entire volume of operations that a large number of military and civilian patients need now with just one.

That is why the charity platform dobro.ua has launched a fundraising campaign to buy a new laparoscopic stand for St. Luke's Hospital.

Remember that there are no small donations. Every hryvnia is important. So please support the collection and help the surgeons of St. Luke's Hospital to save Ukrainians!