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KIEV (Reuters) – Oleh Holubchenko’s team was operating on five-month-old Taras when an explosive shockwave blew the medical staff across the room.
Shards of glass pierced Holubchenko’s back and the face of his colleague Igor Kolodka. The baby lay on an operating table, surrounded by shattered equipment and five bleeding adults.
“Is everybody alive?” Holubchenko recalled yelling.
After the ventilator failed, anesthesiologist Yaroslav Ivanov grabbed a manual resuscitator to keep the baby breathing. Fearing the ceiling would collapse, some team members ran to the basement with Taras.
This was the dramatic moment after a missile struck the Ohmatdit children’s hospital in central Kiev on Monday, an attack that shocked Ukrainians and prompted angry condemnation from Kiev and its Western allies.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that the hospital was “highly likely” hit directly by a Russian missile during a series of airstrikes on Ukrainian cities that killed at least 44 people. The Kremlin said without providing evidence that it was Ukrainian anti-missile fire, not Russian, that hit the hospital, flattening much of it.
Two adults died and dozens were injured at Ohmadit Hospital, where many patients, family members and staff escaped the worst of the blast by fleeing to the basement.
“For me, Ohmatdit was the safest place for kids and adults. That day, I realized there is no safe place anywhere anymore,” Ivanov, 39, told Reuters by phone on Tuesday as he recovered from a concussion and cuts.
When they reached the basement, Ivanov and his colleagues found no smoke in the room and no screams of the injured.
There, they restored the baby to consciousness and handed him over to a team of doctors who continued the surgery at another hospital.
Return directly to work
While Holubchenko and Ivanov tended to Taras, Kolodka removed the shards of glass from his face and rushed out to see how he could help. He saw that the toxicology department had been razed to the ground.
“Since I was no longer bleeding, I went outside to continue helping the wounded and dealing with the aftermath of the missile attack,” Kolodka said.
“At the time, we weren’t thinking about whether it was easy or hard — we were just doing our jobs and trying to help.”
After a day of helping rescue workers and soldiers search through the rubble in the dust and heat, he returned home to find the power was out – common across the country as Russia’s energy system went haywire.
Kolodka woke up at 5 a.m. to shower and then went back to work. Holubchenko also returned to the hospital on Tuesday.
“I had to go because I had a meeting with my colleagues to see what was happening in the department and check all the equipment,” Holubchenko said. “I … contacted a colleague from another hospital to ask about the baby.”
Taras was told he was doing well after surgery.
As they battle exhaustion, the team is heartened by the support and gratitude they have received from their patients and the community at large.
Repair work at the hospital began within hours of the explosion, with hundreds of volunteers joining the effort to clear broken glass, rubble and damaged equipment.
“It’s great to see our people so united,” Kolodka said.
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