Children with burns need special help
A boy who survived a rocket attack on Vinnytsia has returned to Ukraine after a year of treatment in Germany. His recovery will continue where they fought for his life in the first weeks after his injury – in Lviv – at the UNBROKEN KIDS Children's Rehabilitation Center.
Romchik Oleksiv is now 8 years old. It was hard to believe that they would come last summer. Burns on 45% of his body surface. On his back – the most severe fourth degree. In Ukraine, such patients die. The then 7-year-old boy received these extensive and deep injuries on July 14, 2022, in Vinnytsia, during a massive rocket attack on the city. Romchyk's mother, who brought her son to see a doctor, was killed, as were the doctor and 25 other people. For the next few days, the boy's father was torn between his wife's funeral and saving his son.
From Vinnytsia, Romchyk was transported to the First Medical Unit of Lviv, the largest burn unit in the western regions of Ukraine. But even here, as elsewhere in the country, there was no chance of saving the child. There are neither proper conditions for severe burn patients nor equipment. "He arrived in an extremely serious condition. In fact, he was critical. We did everything we could, especially our intensive care unit and anesthesiologists. We hoped he would survive. But we thought that most likely he would not even live to be transported abroad," Lesya Strilka, Romchyk's burn surgeon, shares her prognosis honestly.
However, a miracle happens. The boy lives, fights, and in a few weeks his condition is stabilized enough to be transported. The University Clinic of Dresden, one of the largest burn hospitals in Germany, agrees to take in the extremely serious Ukrainian child who suffered from Russian aggression. Romchyk is evacuated abroad by a team of German paramedics from Artesans-ResQ. The Ministry of Health of Ukraine and Médecins Sans Frontières are supporting the transportation.
In Germany, Romchyk is operated on three times a week. They remove non-viable tissue, glass and muscle fragments from his leg, replace his eardrum, and perform numerous skin transplants. Every day they try to save him. And a miracle happens a second time. The boy, who had minimal chances for life, is recovering. In Dresden, for the first time since his injury, he opened his eyes and took his first steps in front of his father, who had already lost his wife and could not bear to lose his son.
A year later, Romchik returns home to Ukraine with his father, to the department where doctors desperately fought for a chance to save the child and now will begin rehabilitation. The boy comes in wearing a special compression mask, which is necessary to make the burns less scarred. They need to be constantly polished. If this is not done, pain and limited mobility are inevitable. Because the child grows, but the scar tissue does not. However, even the largest burn unit in the western regions does not have a laser for scar resurfacing. To get the device, the First Medical Association of Lviv, Kyivstar and the dobro.ua platform launched a charity fundraiser!
To join the "Children's hope: helping children with burns" charity project, please follow the link: https://dobro.ua/en/project/kyivstar/.
Every hryvnia is important! It brings us closer to our goal: to rescue, treat and restore Ukrainian children with burns – in Ukraine 🇺🇦.
Lviv burn surgeons are satisfied with the results of their German colleagues' work. They saved not only the child's life, but also preserved his dream of learning to play the accordion masterfully. His deceased mother knew how to play this instrument herself and taught her son. There are chances to continue music lessons. The German doctors made a miracle, and Lviv rehabilitation specialists should help to consolidate this success. When Romchyk recovers, he dreams of one day playing a real accordion concert for his doctors.
