"His heart couldn't take the stress": 65-year-old man dies in shelter during attack on Kyiv

A 65-year-old man died in one of the underground pedestrian crossings in the Solomianskyi district during the attack on Kyiv. A few minutes after the explosions, he lost consciousness and began to struggle to breathe.

Source: hromadske, a Ukrainian independent media outlet

Details: Viktor lived alone and went to a shelter every time there was an attack.

Hromadske journalist Denys Bulavin witnessed the man's death. He said Viktor had brought his own chair into the underground crossing. A few minutes after the explosions, he lost consciousness, began struggling to breathe and his face quickly turned blue. Medics who arrived at the scene pronounced him dead.

"When he lost consciousness, his phone fell out of his hands. The screen was showing tracking of what aerial asset was flying and where," Bulavin wrote.

The man who died was 65-year-old Viktor Yerko, originally from Chernihiv Oblast. His daughter Anna Venedyktova said he worked in construction his whole life. When he retired, he kept on working anyway.

"The best dad and grandad. He was so happy when his grandson was born. He'd come to see us all the time, bringing whole bags of presents. My son knew his grandad until he was three, but when the full-scale war started we had to leave, so we barely saw each other for almost five years," Anna says.

Despite this, the family always stayed in touch: Anna wrote to her father every day to check he was okay. But today, she learned he died. She was only told it happened in an underground crossing – the rest of the details Anna saw in the news.

"His heart couldn't take the stress. He lived alone and went to the shelter every single time. But sadly, it didn't save him. We love him so much. His grandson Marko will never get to hug his grandad again," Anna says.

Viktor has also left behind a son and a granddaughter.

Background:

• On the night of 23-24 September, Russia carried out another large-scale attack on Ukraine. The Russians used almost 300 drones of various types, as well as ballistic and anti-ship missiles.
• Eight people were injured in the attack on the Ukrainian capital – at least two ended up in hospital in a serious condition, and two more were killed. Patients were mostly diagnosed with polytrauma, mine-blast injuries and shrapnel wounds.
• The attack also damaged the building of Maternity Hospital No. 2. At the time of the strike, patients and medical staff were in a shelter, so none of them were injured. A baby boy was born in the medical facility's shelter during the attack.

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