On 7 March 2022, Kharkiv was under a massive shelling attack. On that day, trying to hide from the shelling, Vladyslav Devyatko’s wife and son did not make it to the bomb shelter in time. They came under shellfire along with other family members in the yard of their house. Vladyslav’s wife died right there, in front of their 11-year-old son Kyrylo. The boy received multiple shell fragment wounds. He was discharged from the hospital after some operations and treatment but after that, the child almost died. A fragment remained stuck in his body that moved close to his heart and caused a stroke…

He was rescued and it is a miracle. I cannot explain it in any other way. It was just a miracle. It started on 7 March. There was a bombing on 7 March. At that time, I was staying in touch with my wife while I was away on a business trip. Our relatives were with my wife at our home. Our flat was on the ground floor. My wife took her mother, her sister and nephew to us, so they all were at our home. When the next bombing attack or the next round of shelling began, all the people ran out to the stairwell.

On the ground floor too, everyone ran out there, and my wife ran out too. No matter what I said, she did not listen to me. They were very frightened and our neighbour said, “Let’s run to the basement to hide there.” He and his mother ran out into the street and my wife followed them. Her nephew Oleksandr (Sashka – for short), the son of my wife’s sister, was running after my wife. He turned 21 years old [shortly before then]. Then the grandmother and Kyrylo were running behind them. As soon as they were about to run out of the entrance hall, a shell flew in. Kyrylo saw this and told me, “I saw how it hit right near my mum.” I don’t know how it was even possible. He said that he saw how it flew in and hit right near her, and then a white light followed, and that’s it.

My wife’s body was torn apart. She was torn to pieces. Parts of her body were on different sides. Those people who were outside, on the street, were torn apart too.

Sashka... he was still in the depth of the entrance hall and he received multiple piercing wounds all over his body. He died in his mother’s arms, who had been running behind him before the strike. She tried to help him. She screamed and tried to put pressure on his wounds, close the openings from which blood was coming. It took just a few minutes and he died in her arms. He was her only son. Kyrylo was then struck by shell fragments.

He got the wounds all over his body. He was taken to the hospital, to the Fourth Emergency Care Hospital in Kharkiv. They examined him there. Well, he was in a more or less stable condition. He did not feel anything. As he said, “I don’t feel anything.” In this hospital, they sewed and stitched up every wound they could find on his body. They took out all the shell fragments they could but did not notice one fragment that was in the neck. His neck was sewn up and then everything seemed to be fine for 23 days. His treatment continued.

They applied some ointment [to the wounds] and visited the surgeons, and after 23 days he had a stroke – he was sitting and then fell down. He fell and it was not clear why and what exactly happened.

We called a doctor and the doctor said that it could be some kind of a post-blast injury, some kind of an epileptic trauma. That he needed to get some sleep. I said, “Such a thing never happened to him before. Nothing of the kind happened to him previously.” Then we called an ambulance and took him to the Fourth Emergency Care Hospital again. They checked him there but did not identify the stroke in the Fourth Hospital, although they took him to the tomographic scanner. Then they sent us to another hospital, no. 16, near KhTZ. They also made a check-up there.

They probably realized that there was nothing in there, and they could not understand what it was. Then we were sent to the regional hospital and only there, using a tomographic scanner, they found that a fragment – the one that hit the neck – started moving to his heart. So this fragment cut one of his arteries and incised another artery. The doctor said that a little more and then it would be... I don’t even want to say it. Then the Institute of Emergency Surgery, they also refused to do any surgery operations. We turned to the Mother and Child Foundation, and only they helped us. In particular, the head of the Foundation, Alla, was looking for someone who could operate on the child in Ukraine. However, no one was ready to do it and the Institute of Surgery again sent us somewhere.

They just put him some drips all the time. From the Surgery Institute we were sent to an ordinary hospital, on Muranova Street in Kharkiv. And to cut it short, we were staying there. He was getting the drips, a treatment with some medications. Then Alla found some opportunities quickly, very quickly. We were picked up directly from that hospital.

When we were taken from the hospital, all the doctors and all the nurses went out into the street, knowing what had happened to the child. Well, some of them prayed, others just [felt sympathetic]...

When we came to Poland, Italian doctors met us there immediately. It was a group of about ten people, probably. They were all doctors there and they took the child to another vehicle because at that time he was very weak... Well, he was just lying there, and that’s all. Then, the next day, we were on a plane... They made him an examination that took three days. For the first time in my life, I saw doctors queue up near the patient with all their devices and equipment. Indeed, they queued up one behind the other. It was not us going from one room to another room. They came to this intensive care unit with their [medical] devices and did everything. For three days, they were busy with an examination and then they called me. They said that this fragment needed to be removed because there was a risk of sepsis.

On the fourth day, five surgeons worked for seven hours. I don’t know how they swapped but they eventually did it.

When it all finished, I was told that the operation went well. They themselves were surprised that everything went so well. Here in Italy, the newspapers also reported about this operation. So long story short, this is a miracle, just the Lord’s grace, I would say.

Oh how delicious...

His hand does not function and he feels embarrassed about it. Well, he spent almost a month on a sick leave but now he plays with other kids. He does not play on the phone or computer that much, but he rather plays some children’s games, like hide and seek or the tag game.

He is not really in a condition to be able to run around freely but it’s still more interesting for him.

Show us how your right hand works... Move this hand like that, towards yourself, to yourself. The child is in the recovery phase now. Certainly, there are many of those brain lesions after the stroke but he is recovering. Adults recover after this too. Therefore, we all believe, I believe that he will recover. I am with him all the time and I see here, where we are accommodated now, I can see that there is a very good progress. Something gets better all the time, something always improves. Well, it takes not weeks. Something rather gets better every day. I see things getting better every day. He is content too. When he smiles, I fell very, very [glad]...