Shell fragment passed through the whole brain: how doctors saved the life of 9-year-old Sofiia
Mykhailo Zahorodnii journalist UT.Life
May 11, 2022
Lviv neurosurgeons saved the life of a 9-year-old Sofiika from Mykolaiv, who received a head wound as a result of a Russian shell explosion.
The girl is recovering and undergoing long-term rehabilitation, but already has dreams and plans for the future, tells the First Medical Association of Lviv.
In the hospital, a huge shell fragment that passed 11 cm through Sofiia’s brain has been taken out. Doctors closed the defect with a titanium plate.
The girl was injured during the shelling of a residential block of Mykolaiv by russian cluster shells on April 4.
The girl's mother is Nina, she told me that when she heard explosions, she and Sofiika were on the street near the children's hospital in Mykolaiv.
"Men who were on the street advised us to fall under the house. We sat down, I covered Sofiia with myself from behind and my sister sat in front. My daughter was in the middle" she said.
However, after the explosions subsided, the mother noticed that blood was gushing from the girl's head.
For two days the 9-year-old Sofiika was in a coma in Mykolaiv.
After that, the girl and her mother were evacuated to St. Nicholas Hospital in Lviv, where neurosurgeons operated on Sofiika, removing a shell fragment from her brain.
"The complexity of the injury was that the entrance hole was in the frontal area, and the fragment got stuck all the way to the posterior cranial fossa, that is, it passed through the entire brain, through the so-called median structures.
The girl talks, contacts. She has a slight weakness in her right arm and leg, but compared to the injury she suffered, it's really a miracle" - said the head of the neurosurgical Department of the hospital Mykhailo Lovha.
Now the girl is learning to take her first steps again and has started talking. She also actively trains to continue playing a musical instrument and fulfill her greatest desire – to sing on stage one day.
Recently, Sofiika admitted that she has a dream to meet her idol – Lviv tick-toker Roman Myronenko, because she is his ardent fan.
On May 11, the guy found the time and visited the girl in the ward, where they sang together and recorded a video in Tik-Tok.
Read also: "Return Alice's mother": Ukrainians demand to release the mother of a 4-year-old girl from captivity
