“The doctor said: ‘You have a second eye. If you don't like something, go to Kyiv’” — veteran Dmytro Sukhodolskyi

“When one doctor tells you it's better to cut off your arm, it's better to ask another one,” says veteran Dmytro Sukhodolskyi, who had 18 bullet wounds. More than 500 days of treatment are over, and another surgery is ahead.

What does a severely wounded person face? What were Dmytro's unpleasant experiences in military hospitals in Ukraine? How did he get to Poland for treatment and what are the peculiarities there? How did he become a participant of the Save a Limb program and what did it give him?

Dmytro spoke about this and other things to Serhi Hnezdilov, a soldier and host of hromadske, in the ++ Podcast project.

About how he got to the war

In 2014, I missed the wave of mobilization and decided to sign a contract, believing the words of the employees of the Territorial Manning Centre: “Sign for three years, and in a year and a half the war will be over.” So I signed a contract for three years and finished it in 2017.

When I started serving in the combat zone, there was already a positional war, meaning that everyone was standing in their places, you shot and they shot. I served three years and decided that I would return to IT. I retrained a little bit and worked for probably four and a half years until the full-scale war started.

The military enlistment office was nearby, so I immediately packed my things and left. I was sent to the famous Bohdan Khmelnytsky Presidential Brigade in Kyiv.

About the injuries

It was May 2022. We were in the Kharkiv sector at the time. It was a very dynamic confrontation. I was in charge of the unit of man-portable air defense systems such as Igla and Stingers. We tried to push the enemy as far as possible.

One day we moved to new positions — I was to be stationed about a kilometer from the first line, in a summer house community. Our unit — four people — arrived there. I left the driver and one guy with the car near the road under the trees so they wouldn't be too noticeable. The other guy and I walked around for an hour looking for the best place to stand, and we found a good spot.

The next step is to return to the car, drive to this position, quickly unload so as not to get caught, and send the driver back to Kharkiv.

This guy and I returned in about 15 minutes. I decided that the four of us would not get into the car, so I went with the driver, and the other guys walked behind us, 100-200 meters away.

We were driving along the same road we had just walked on, and at one of the bends we were met by a subversive reconnaissance group — five men, two of whom had machine guns and three with regular Kalashnikovs. There was a pause for about 10 seconds.

My weapon was without a safety, so I had time to aim. I could see in my side vision that the driver had already raised his hands, because what could he do — he was a young kid, and he was driving — and if he took up arms, it would only get worse.

They opened fire first. I think it lasted for about 15 seconds. They shot at the car. Because I was holding my weapon in front of me and was a little bit taller than them, a lot of bullets hit my left side, I was thrown a little bit sideways.

When the shooting was over, I saw that I was bleeding. I thought that they would probably finish me off. I didn't even want to look at what was happening at first. I remember grabbing my phone, thinking about texting something to my wife, and then realizing that there was no cell phone service, and I felt bad

About 20-30 seconds passed, and I saw that they were gone, the car was already burning inside, the driver's door was open, and he had already jumped out. My right arm was okay, my left arm was hanging. I opened the door, jumped out of the car, and immediately saw that the driver was lying face down on the ground, but still showing signs of life.

I immediately warned the guys on the radio that there were five or*s behind us, and also provided information that I was heavily injured and that we had another heavily injured guy.

Realizing that the car was already on fire — I had filled it to the brim with gas — and there were four Stingers inside, I gave the driver a command to crawl away as best I could, and I started crawling away myself — I already had a broken nerve in my leg.

About evacuation

I recently had a medical examination, and they counted 32-33 scars. I had about 18 surgeries in almost four months. I changed hospitals, I was in Kharkiv, Poltava, Kyiv, Warsaw, and back in Kyiv.

I was evacuated to Kharkiv, and I was very lucky with it — they put tourniquets and everything else on me, and it was a 30-minute drive on a flat road. I stayed awake the whole time, and I remember that it went by very quickly.

We waited for half an hour for a car to come to us — the medics didn't risk it, one good lieutenant went. I found out later that he had pulled out 10-12 guys in the next five days. Until he hit a mine himself, but he survived. Now he is serving, unfortunately, without one limb. He took me and handed me over to our medics. Then an ambulance took us to Kharkiv.

Many people did not stay in Kharkiv, because there was a sorting base there, as well as in Dnipro, and the influx was large. They kept the most heavily injured in the corridor to evacuate them if necessary.

After five days, we were sent by train to Poltava, where we were placed in a clinic, not a military hospital. After a couple of weeks, I realized that they would not provide me with the help I wanted.

At first, they told me that my eye would be fine, probably to avoid the moral burden. If they had told me right away that I wouldn't be able to see, I might have accepted it calmly.

My eye was saved as an organ, a lens was inserted, and perhaps in a couple of years, I will need to have a correction, because it needs to be trained since the muscle is not working, or I may have a strabismus.

As for the eye, I'm not losing hope — medicine is moving by leaps and bounds these days, so maybe something will be invented in five or six years, or I will be like the Terminator.

About the treatment

I really “liked” the ophthalmologist in Poltava. I asked her what was wrong with my eye. She looked at it and just went to the exit. She said: “What do you want, you have a second eye. If you don't like something, go to Kyiv.”

I stayed in Poltava for about three weeks and realized that there was no progress in my treatment. I was wondering what to do with my arm because it had taken a lot of bullets and probably saved my life. Some bullets passed through it and got stuck in the neck as fragments. And a real bullet could have hit the eye, not fragments from it.

I was brought to Kyiv, where I was further surgically treated. Then I was enrolled in the evacuation program to Europe.

By the way, in the Kyiv Hospital, to have an eye operation, I had to be sent to the ophthalmology department. It was “so well” thought out that there were no ramps, and I had to be lifted in a wheelchair by three or four men — one flight of stairs, another one…

They told me that the nerve in my leg would recover and everything would be fine. They gave me a rehabilitation therapist for a few minutes a day. He would come:“Are you doing something? Well, keep doing it”.

When you are wounded, we are given booklets from the Ministry of Defense on what steps you need to take to get financial assistance. You open it and it says: “Thank you for your service, get well”. And I would like to see some reference to a rehabilitation center.

Much depends on the person, you have to take the initiative. You can stay in the hospital for a maximum of four months. If you need any repeated surgeries, as I did, you have to search for the where, what, and how yourself.

I was not immediately told that I was discharged from the army, because it was not clear what was wrong with my leg. I did a nerve conduction test myself, at my own expense, and found out that there was no nerve conduction and I needed to undergo surgery. The hospital told me to wait for three months and my leg would recover on its own. But it started to hurt like hell, I couldn't sleep.

About the Health of the Ukrainian People Foundation

In March of this year, I had a second military medical commission, this time for discharge, and went to see the traumatologist who accompanied me in Kyiv when I had my surgery. I showed him my arm, told him that the plates were protruding, and asked if it was possible to do endoprosthetics. He replied that it was possible, but they don't do it in Ukraine, you have to save up money and go to Germany, Israel, Britain, or the United States.

I came across the wife of a wounded man with whom we got along quite well when we were in the same ward. He was already a member of the Health of the Ukrainian People Foundation. I went to the link, filled out a questionnaire, and recorded a 20-second video message about what happened to me.

They first looked at what could be done with my arm and provided a very good doctor to accompany me. I had my first surgery in May and a second one in June. And now I am waiting for the next, hopefully, the last, surgery.

The Health of the Ukrainian People Foundation organized a roundtable, and people from the Ministry of Veterans, including our chief representative to the President, were involved. I asked him a direct question: “Where is the information for the guy about his nearest rehabilitation center?” There was information that more than 400 rehabilitation centers had been opened in Ukraine. Where can I find this list? I would like to see some kind of general website where guys could rate them.

About endoprosthetics

I was lucky with this foundation, they found me a good doctor. He says that endoprosthetics have been done in Ukraine for a long time, and it's strange that the hospital doctor didn't know that. Another issue is that endoprostheses are needed, and the state is still buying prostheses for cancer patients — they are also made of titanium, but not the right kind.

I think that when one doctor says that your arm should be cut off, it is better to ask another. And similarly, when one doctor says your arm shouldn’t be cut off, it's also better to ask another one. You can end up with a doctor who says he has all the tools, but his hands grow from the wrong place, or vice versa.

Before, I could only reach my nose, but now I can hold the phone. My goal for this year was to scratch my nose. I'm not stopping there, I want my arm to work as much as possible.

The doctor said that I was too young for endoprosthetics, but they would transplant healthy bone from my hip and put a plate in. I don't want to get a Chinese plate or one made of non-titanium.

The problem with endoprosthetics is that the surgery needs to be done every 10 years. Now, as I see on Prozorro, we are buying the cheapest endoprostheses for cancer patients. A cancer patient needs this prosthesis for maybe one and a half to two years, and it is made of titanium chips. Imagine a guy who has this prosthesis fitted, and in a year and a half, he needs to have it cut again.

About what rehabilitation should be like

I would really like the Ministry of Veterans to make sure that some [conditional] Mykola could see where he should go to join society.

We want it to be like in the US: even if a person has no hands, they will not be released from the rehabilitation center until they learn to cook and serve themselves. They say to the wounded: “What did you do before? Did you play soccer? Then we will do everything to keep you playing soccer. Yes, you'll play differently, but you have to get back to your life.” I would like to see this approach to veterans in Ukraine.

I am very grateful to the Health of the Ukrainian People Foundation. They help me, I help them — I spread the word to everyone I meet because it's great when you have options.