There was a slew of shell fragments. We even found a fragment inside the house – where the fragment hit my husband. One evening in October 2014, we had our dinner as usual. We took shower and then were watching TV. And then suddenly we heard some sounds. It was the shelling. I jumped out of bed and said to my husband, ‘Let us get out, let us run out of here.’ And he said, ‘But where to run? We don’t know what it is!’
He was putting on his track pants and I ran to the cellar. Near the cellar the shellfire caught me. Splinters. And my husband... As soon as I ran out of the room, my husband was killed immediately.
Our son was injured outdoors, near the cellar. I screamed to him, ‘Oleksiy, hide!’ And he said, ‘Mum, what?’ He was looking at me. If he had been turned with his face, his face would have been smashed. He turned the other way – and it hit him in the arm.
We were injured and we were staying in the cellar. The shelling was quite heavy. It was such a whirlwind; I could not imagine it. Our son began to faint away in the cellar. I sprinkled some water on his face.
As soon as the shelling calmed down, we rushed out. We saw my husband. He was hit in the chest. When we were lifting him up, my brother said that his whole back was pierced with splinters. He lay unconscious for three hours. He had a pulse. The door was open and it was cold. He was frozen. He could probably be rescued, but the ambulance did not come. And nobody wanted to come here.
I am thankful to my brother. He called his workers. My brother is a farmer, a private entrepreneur. And he gave me his driver and his "Niva" car. So, we put my husband in the car. If there had been a resuscitation ambulance, they could have saved him.
My son’s arm above the elbow was almost torn off. It was tied just with a tendon. We came to the traffic police post. There, a medical nurse and a soldier immediately splinted his arm with some wooden boards so that it would be immobilized. They put some tourniquets.
And as for me... I heard some clap and it hit me in the side. It burned a little and that’s all. I was as if in a state of shock. I braced myself. It burned a bit and then stopped. And then, when I began to come to my senses, it hurt very much – two fragments were in my back.
When I was going down to the cellar, I saw that two shell fragments, a smaller and a larger one, we moving towards me simultaneously. And they got me. The smaller one cut my arm, and the larger one cut half of my body side. Some meat or muscle was torn out.
Everything went upside down. It is very difficult to start everything all over again. Now I somehow live for the sake of my children and grandchildren. Life goes on. But I can’t get my husband back.
I am employed and I have a large vegetable garden. If you don’t work, you won’t have anything at home. I feel some burning in my back, in the muscles, in soft tissues, when I go to bed in the evening. I can work for an hour or two, and then I need to lie down for about 15 minutes for those fragments to get back into place.
The doctor said that it is very deep. ‘Don’t trouble trouble...,’ the doctor said, that’s all.
My son underwent two surgeries at once. The doctors sewed on, took out shell fragments and some crushed bone pieces. He tolerated these operations very badly. He has a disability since childhood. He’s got the second group of disability.
Now I work for myself. If I work, I will be able to live, and if I don’t, I will be ruined. I account on my own strength, on myself, on my children, that’s the only way. To work, work, and keep working. Not to let my spirits sink and not to give up.
.png "Names")
