The enemy bombardment caught 23-year-old Mariupol resident Mykola Burlaka near the Azovstal steelworks, where he worked as a repairman. The man sustained head and arm wounds from shelling. Mykola managed to walk to his home, where he received first aid.
Mykola Burlaka
Together with another family Mykola tried to leave Mariupol by car. However, the man failed to make his way out of the city: he was captured by Chechens near the former children's camp "Orliatko". In the hospital Mykola had fragments removed from his head. They could have saved his arm, but did not.
"And then they put a bag over my head and took me somewhere. I spent four days in some basement. When gangrene began, I was taken to a hospital in Donetsk. They said that the arm could not be saved," Mykola recalls.
After the amputation of part of his left arm, the man spent several days in Donetsk hospitals. From there, Mykola was taken to the detention center in Olenivka, and then to a high-security colony in Luhansk region. The Azovstal employee spent almost four months in captivity until the prisoner exchange on the Constitution Day in Zaporizhzhia.
The management of Azovstal and Metinvest helped Mykola to get into the joint prosthetics program of the Saving Lives humanitarian project and the Prosthetics Support Project in Ukraine.
"I do not know what I would have done, how I would have pushed for a prosthesis without this program. I am also grateful to Azovstal for financial assistance for treatment," says Mykola.
Kyiv specialists are already preparing the man for the prosthesis. First, the Mariupol resident will be fitted with a training prosthesis, and later - a permanent bionic one. Before that, Mykola will undergo 18 days of rehabilitation in Morshyn.
