Ukrainian soldier survives 36 days in hostility zone with tourniquet on

This was reported on Facebook by the press service of the Military Medical Clinical Center of the Northern Region, Ukrinform reports.

“A soldier who survived 36 days with a tourniquet on his wounded leg underwent a surgery in a Kharkiv hospital. Even the most experienced military surgeons cannot recall any other case involving 864 hours,” the post reads.

It is noted that for more than a month, wounded soldier Oleksandr, 41, could not evacuate his positions outside Vovchansk. Throughout this time, a tourniquet remained on his right leg (it is normally recommended that a tourniquet be removed in under two hours since application).

“The man survived due to properly managing the tourniquet. If the tourniquet had not been applied or if this had been done incorrectly, the man would have died. I see military training is becoming better . Gradually, our forces are being manned with those who have undergone basic training and understand what to do when they are wounded. The soldier is alive, but, unfortunately, part of his limb where the tourniquet had been applied was amputated,” said Viacheslav Kurinnyi, deputy chief of the medical unit at the Northern Region's Military Medical Clinical Center.

Doctors say medical textbooks never described cases such as Oleksandr's.

“We have not seen any reports in books on such long-term cases. Unfortunately, this is happening now,” Kurinnyi added.

Oleksandr was brought to the Kharkiv hospital in grave condition: with sever anemia and intoxication due to heavy blood loss. “We performed pre-surgical preparation: restored the volume of blood circulation and upped hemoglobin. He was brought with hemoglobin at 69, which is a very low and it is not recommended to perform surgery in such a case. In addition, the patient had hypoalbuminemia, which was due to the fact that he had been deprived of normal food and water for a long time. He said that he did not remember when he last had a normal meal. Then we stabilized the patient under anesthesia. And then we went for surgical intervention,” says Inna Stetsiuk, senior resident at the Department of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care.

Such complications are the least that could happen to a patient after 36 days with a tourniquet on his wounded leg, said Dmytro Sitchenko, the surgeon who operated on the soldier.

“We have never seen anything like this before. Gangrene has already developed, the limb was dying off with purulent complications. That's why he was intoxicated, dehydrated, anemic, hypoalbuminemic, and lost a lot of weight. But still, he was very lucky,” says Dmytro Sitchenko, senior resident at the purulent surgery department.

Oleksandr, who comes from the city of Khmelnytskyi, was brought to the hospital conscious. Speaking about his injury, he said he stepped on an explosive device, most likely a PFM-1 mine. “I could not evacuate for a month and six days. And then the weather got worse, the drones stopped flying for a while, and someone was able to extract me. The guys helped me with the tourniquet, I couldn't do it myself. I realized from the second day into being injured that I would lose my leg. But I didn't get stuck up on that. I wanted to live, I wanted to come back to my family, to my sons. I have two sons. The older one is 12, my younger one is only 2. This is what kept me going,” Oleksandr said.

He is now set to be relocated to a medical facility in Western Ukraine and get a prosthetic limb.

As reported, the 52-year-old soldier, call sign “Alex”, had been in Vovchansk, Kharkiv region, with a tourniquet for 24 days.

The first photo is illustrative