Stories that you confided to us
Margarita miraculously survived - the bus in which she was traveling was bombed. The woman who switched seats with her died on the spot.
It is very, very hard. My nerves are completely broken now, I don't feel anything anymore, everything is petrified in my soul. Sometimes I want to cry, but I have to live somehow.
I was coming from my daughter in Kyiv. On the train, a woman sat down with me, she was traveling from Poltava, she was from Donetsk, and we got acquainted. We arrived at the station, there were cars there. They say it's just fate. I was on my way from my daughter's with my things, I was bringing cakes to my friends, so sit down and go by car, right? Well, this friend of mine said: "Come with me to the bus station”. She started begging me, and I went with her to the bus station, and she helped me carry the cakes.
When we got on the bus, it was packed full, but they gave us tickets and we had seats. The seats were not specified in the ticket, we had to take them ourselves. She said: "You go take our seats." I came in. We were in the first seat. I sat down near the window, and she said: "Let's switch places?” That was because I had to go out earlier. She sat down by the window. A bus was full of people. There was such a hubbub-and suddenly the air seemed to contract, and the bus jumped on the spot.
I looked up – all the people were standing in blood, all the windows have fallen out, some were standing, some people fell down. At that time, 13 people were killed. When all this happened, I turned to her – she was turning yellow and instantly died. Just like that. I just switched seats with that woman.
Immediately there was a shock, I didn't feel anything at all, I didn't even feel pain when I was injured. The woman shouted: "My son was killed!” I heard that, and then it was all a blur.
The door was jammed, while people were opening it time passed. For three hours I just at all lost my memory. Although they say that I was conscious, but I don't remember anything. I should have called my daughter or something… She already found out from the news what happened, and I didn't answer the phone. She knew I was on the bus. I should have done something... but I don't remember anything.
I have a wound on my knee, the joint is completely broken. And a piece of bone is missing from the top of the thigh. And I was shot in the side. Shrapnel injured the neck, it hit into the first and twelfth ribs. The shards are still there, I can't feel them. They say you can live with such fragments.
I had two operations on the leg and one on the side. I was stitched up by the doctors, give them the God of health, they did their best. I slowly bend it, stand, walk, crawl, so that it develops a little.
Probably, on a nervous basis, I had a hypertensive crisis. All of a sudden, I had high blood pressure. Recently, I barely got to the hospital, we stopped on the way, I had injections. My blood pressure was 110 to 70 all the time. And now, if it rises, it can instantly jump up to 200.
When quoting a story, a reference to the source – the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation – is mandatory, as follows:
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/
