Seven-year-old girl injured in 2023 Brovary helicopter crash has undergone dozens of operations, with more to come

Nearly three years on from the helicopter crash in Brovary in January 2023, seven-year-old Ania Dereka is still recovering from the effects of the burns she sustained as a result of the tragedy. Ania has undergone dozens of operations, and there are more ahead of her.

Source: First Medical Association of Lviv

Details: Ania was five when the disaster occurred. At the moment the helicopter crashed, her father was taking her to kindergarten.

She suffered burns on over 30% of her body, with her face and back the worst affected areas. She was initially treated in Brovary and at the Kyiv Burns Centre before being transferred to Lviv's St Nicholas Hospital, where preparations were made to take her abroad for treatment.

"When I first saw her, I fainted. I remember everything was completely red," Ania's mother Kateryna recalls.

Ania was taken to Austria, where she underwent dozens of procedures to clean her wounds and carry out skin grafts. A year later, she travelled to the United States to continue her treatment.

After extensive treatment abroad, Ania has returned to Lviv. She is now having her post-burn scars treated at St Nicholas Hospital. Three CO2 laser resurfacing procedures have already been performed.

"I can see her eyes, her cheeks, her facial expressions – they're all like any other child's," Kateryna says. "In the US, they made her mouth symmetrical and corrected her lip. She has returned to a full childhood – she goes to sand animation, clay modelling and drawing classes."

Ania is set to undergo further laser resurfacing procedures and plastic surgery in the US this year and next.

Background:

• On 18 January 2023, a helicopter crashed near a kindergarten in Brovary, causing a fire. Fourteen people were killed, including one child.
• Senior officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were on board the helicopter lost their lives in the crash: Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his First Deputy Yevhen Yenin and State Secretary Yurii Lubkovych. They were travelling to a combat zone in Ukraine where fighting was ongoing at the time.
• In 2024, an indictment was filed against five officials from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine who were found to have violated flight safety regulations.

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