Kerch Doctors Helped Save Numerous Lives After College Attack

Last week's deadly attack at the polytechnic college forever divided life in Kerch, a small seaside town in Crimea, into before and after.

KERCH (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd October, 2018) Last week's deadly attack at the polytechnic college forever divided life in Kerch, a small seaside town in Crimea, into before and after.

The total number of victims stands at 20. There could have been more fatalities if it were not for the doctors of the Kerch City Hospital No. 1, who quickly established an operational headquarters to treat the injured.

On Wednesday, fourth-year student Vladislav Roslyakov opened fire at the college and detonated an explosive device. More than 50 people were injured. The investigators launched a criminal case on terrorism but later reclassified the probe as an investigation into a murder of two or more persons. The body of the shooter, who committed suicide, was found in the college library.

Doctor Maya Khuzhina said she thought at first that the hospital itself had been blown up.

"And then I heard a sound 'tyn, tyn.' No, it was not an explosion. In a few minutes they said at the emergency room that there was a boy downstairs with an eye injury, and he also had injured legs. And then I realized that if there are injuries, then something must have happened, and people will be brought here," Khuzhina, the deputy chief doctor of the hospital, told Sputnik.

Khuzhina runs the second therapeutic ward of the hospital, which is located 200 meters (almost 660 feet) away from the Polytechnic College. The doctor turned out to be right: the hospital began to receive wounded teenagers. By that time, surgeons, ultrasound and laboratory technicians, cardiologists, nurses were already waiting. They were examining everyone, applying bandages, putting in drips, distributing morphine.

More and more people were coming, they were given first aid and sent to the main building, where there were operating rooms and experienced surgeons.

"They brought Ksyusha, she had two legs holding by a sliver of skin, one was tied with a belt, but she was bleeding. The girl was conscious, I asked for her first name, last name and wrote it on her chest with a paste. We did it with all of them: wrote Names down on hands and feet, when we applied a tourniquet, how much morphine we gave. I asked her, 'Ksyusha, dear, hang on till the first hospital, they will save you there.' But the injuries were too severe. Later, I found out that she had died in intensive care," Khuzhina recalled.

According to her, it was important to give all the victims a shot of painkillers. The doctor said that in a day and a half, a three-month supply was gone: 740 ampoules.

When there were no more injured arriving at her department, Maya Khuzhina took her nurses and pharmaceutical drugs and went to the main building to help her colleagues.

"The worst part was when it was necessary to identify those who came in unidentified. One girl's mother failed to identify her daughter twice, only by a silver pendant with the first letter of her name ... A psychologist worked with me at night: so much blood, so many dead children. I never thought I would see something like this," the doctor said.

Khuzhina is the chairman of the public council of the city. She said she was going to make a proposal to Kerch's and Crimea's authorities to declare October 17 the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow.

Most people came in with shrapnel wounds and torn skin, Alexey Miroshnichenko, head of the traumatology department, told Sputnik.

"At 11:45 a.m. we received a message from the second ward that the wounded were being sent to us. At 12:10 p.m. the operating rooms were ready," Miroshnichenko said.

The head of the department himself had to operate as the hospital was short-staffed in the first hours after the tragedy.

"I operated on the lower extremity avulsion, we were treating it, repairing a shrapnel wound in the shoulder, there was the severed brachial artery.

The vascular surgeon was involved. Unfortunately, the patient did not make it," Miroshnichenko said.

He admitted that full awareness of the scale of the tragedy came later, as at first it was all about saving children. Doctors had to keep calm.

"In total, the surgeons were kept busy in the operating room for about five hours. They took on the next patient right after they were done with the previous one. The longest surgery lasted about two hours," the doctor added.

Two hours after the explosion and shooting at the college, medical teams from the cities of Temryuk and Simferopol arrived to help the Kerch doctors, then doctors from Krasnodar and Moscow came.

According to the chief doctor of the hospital, Marat Yenikeev, journalists and relatives who "whipped up panic" were creating difficulties for the medical teams.

"And your colleagues, correspondents, climbed on the medical equipment: we have a CT scan machine in our backyard," Yenikeev told Sputnik, adding that the police had to be summoned.

According to Yenikeev, the doctors of the hospital had to work in really difficult conditions: 49 people were simultaneously admitted to the hospital, which has only 193 beds. All the doctors and nurses who were on their day off were called in.

"Some doctors came as soon as they found out this happened. Even those who have long retired or resigned came to help. We had eight operating tables functioning at the same time, four people were setting up triage on the first floor. Another x-ray machine was brought from the children's hospital. When the Krasnodar doctors arrived, they immediately joined the surgery," Yenikeev said.

He added that some patients, who could survive transportation, were taken to Temryuk, Krasnodar and Simferopol hospitals. The people in the gravest condition were taken to Moscow.

"It was done, you know, like at war: medical and sanitary battalion did the Primary treatment, then it's on to the hospital and then on to the specialized hospitals. We did the same thing. First aid was provided, and then it was decided to transfer the victims to specialized hospitals," the hospital chief said.

Kerch hospital looks rather modest, there have been no renovations for many years, only one out of the four freight elevators, according to Yenikeev, works, and only one patient could fit in. So, the employees of the hospital had to bring the injured up to the fourth floor. where the operating floor is located, by the stairs.

At the moment, four victims of the tragedy are still in Kerch hospital as well as a young man with a spinal fracture injury who, overcome with grief for his girlfriend who died in the tragedy, jumped out of the window. The young woman passed away while she was being transported to another city.

A 16-year-old Lera Kochkina had shrapnel taken out of her leg, but she also has a tibia fracture. She had her surgery on Monday morning, as the doctors took out a screw from her other leg.

"I was in the dining room during the explosion, buying buns and tea. I remember an orange flash and then an explosion. I sat down. I remember there were a lot of people in the canteen, and when I came to, there were only a few, people were crawling out. I heard screams, but they were quiet. I went out through a broken window, and my friend went through the turnstile. She was shot. She is now in the hospital of Simferopol," Kochkina told Sputnik.

According to her mother, Lera, who is a music student, also has a ruptured eardrum. Doctors told the family that Lera would need a surgery in Moscow or St. Petersburg, so Lera and her mother are now hoping they will get state help with this.