Fifteen-year-old rescuer: “I got wounded in the legs, but I could not leave people under fire”

She became a symbol of Ukrainian resilience. Fifteen-year-old Liza Chernyshenko was wounded, but drove four adults out of the fire zone.

Three men and a woman. Two men were hit by shrapnel, one of them was wounded very badly. So I had to get behind the steering wheel and drive the car to Bakhmut. Everyone survived, but two men got penetrating wounds from the bullets, and I was [wounded] too. One of them was Uncle Zhenia, whom I know. We just needed urgent help so as not to lose too much blood.

Before that, I was alive and intact. We have a bridge in that area – you first go downhill and then drive uphill. There were land mines lying in a checkerboard pattern there. It was [impossible] to drive through there, but I drove the car through somehow. Then there was a dead body of a woman lying there... and a roadside post. I drove pass it too and then took a turn to the right, and that was where we were fired upon [from a sub-machine gun]. I was [wounded] in the legs and I could hardly do anything. The car stalled. I barely re-started the engine and we drove on. But then the car stalled again as the car battery was shot through by a bullet.

And it so happened that the military then took us away and took us to Bakhmut. I got a wound in the knee on my right leg. I have two penetrating [wounds]. Well, not completely through the knee, but as if the skin was pulled off. And on my foot, where the sole is, my small toe is missing. That is, I don’t have one toe now, it was torn off. And a huge wound like this, deep to the bone.

My mother passed away seven years ago, and my godmother remained in Popasna. So I went to Bakhmut, and never came back.