"My daughter was in a coma for 20 days"

It all happened on 18 November 2014. It was 08:30 in the evening. We were going to bed when we heard a noise. The flash is like a rocket. The neighbors started to shake everything, and everything started to fall. I couldn't sleep at night. I jumped up to the younger child, and we were thrown back by the wave.

I just didn't realise what was going on. I heard boards and a cinder block fall. I jumped up to the baby. We had a crib in the corner. I hugged him to me and covered myself with a blanket, and we were thrown back.

Then, 10 minutes later, I could hear people talking and shining flash lights. They came and started throwing everything away. I did not realize… I held Artem close. I don't know where he went as if he had stayed away. Not all the walls fell down in our room, but, luckily, the area where the crib was standing was intact. I probably moved him from the corner of the crib.

It all came crashing down later, when people got to us. The military arrived by ambulance. They moved us from the house to the street and then the room finally collapsed.

The husband was sleeping on the bed, and the largest part of the cinder block fell on him. He fell on the chest and died instantly. When they got to him, he wasn't breathing. I was told so. I didn't hear a scream or anything else. I called out to him and Masha – and no one answered. We could only heard thumping, and that was all.

Masha's daughter had a first-degree coma, fluid in her head, a closed craniocerebral injury, and left side was paralyzed. My daughter was in a coma for 20 days.

We applied to the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. The doctor wrote what we needed, what equipment, what medicine we needed. They brought everything necessary in time. They brought Masha out of the coma.

A week after that, when she began to breathe on her own. She was sent to Kharkiv for surgery. It was very difficult with finances. Other people also contacted the Foundation. We are all very grateful for your timely help. We were in Kharkiv for a month after the operation. Masha started walking and talking. We didn't buy any medications for a whole month before and after the surgery. We had no pills, no injections, we didn't buy anything, and the Foundation sent it all to us. 

Artem was in intensive care for one day. Then he was transferred to the somatics department, children's department. He was fine. He's fine now. He had a mild concussion.

She goes to school now. She has new friends, lessons. And she is feeling much better now. The first year after the operation, she was afraid. She was such a tight-lipped girl. Now she is growing and developing like a normal child.

We go to our parents' house, but we don't go to that street. My hands start shaking immediately. I don't feel comfortable. My blood pressure may rise high any minute. And I have two more children. I don't want to go to the hospital. God forbid, something will happen to me. I hope that everything will get better in the future, the children will grow up and everything will be fine.