What makes a therapist working in Germany go to eastern Ukraine to treat the wounded? Jeanna Kroemer, a Belsat TV correspondent in Berlin, tells us what impressed the doctor the most and what he thinks of the situation in Ukraine.
Today we are talking about the situation in the zone of the antiterrorist operation with the German-Ukrainian medical Sergei Bricko-Steuer. Sergei, how did you come to be in the ATO zone?
In December I was returning from the ATO zone – everyone can become a volunteer regardless of citizenship or status. On the train I met a young surgeon from Uzhgorod. He told me about his service and said that the situation with medical workers is really bad, they cannot even take a short leave. He was going home just because some civilian agreed to replace him for a week. I told him to ask his boss whether I might come as a substitute.
They permitted, but said there are no security guarantees. Thus, I could go. Perhaps, the most spectacular day was when Debaltseve district was heavily bombed. There was a large influx of the wounded, mostly from the 128th Brigade. They came one after another; they even had to wait in the queue. There was a lack of cars to take them to hospitals. Lack of professionals, lack of space. All this [prviding medical aid – Belsat] was half-improvisational .
They were bringing the boys. Nurses and doctors rushed to them, cut the clothes, tried to find veins, did proper anesthesia. At that moment we needed specialists in regional anesthesia who could block the nerve trunks according to Vishnevski so that limbs could be safely operated on. But we had only Gexalgin.
We tried not to give them potent narcotic drugs to keep their mobility, so that they could walk, get in a car and drive away. On the other hand, it took more control, we needed an anesthetist on the scene. That’s why only the boys who faced a major surgery were properly anesthesized.
And the guys tolerated pain. And all this happened from morning to evening every day.
Whom did you happen to save? Only soldiers, or civilians too?
There were civilians too. It is more traumatic to human perception. There were women … I was lucky, thank God, there were no [wounded] children then. Later, after he left, kids were admitted, too.
A typical injury civilians got under the rubble is that their bones, scraps of flesh and vessels are mixed with clothes, dirt, splinters of glass, wood, concrete, stones … It is hard. It takes a long time to ‘get’ to a man’s body, because it is very dirty.
And you cannot anesthesize him until you complete examination.
Did you treat wounded separatists?
There was a badly-burnt tankist, but on another floor, but I didn’t have time to visit him. Frankly speaking, I would have examined him and asked whether he needed help. I knew that he was being treated, but I don’t know what has happened to him later.
Jeanna Kroemer, Berlin
