The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation “The splinter stopped millimeters from my son’s carotid artery” – the story of Oksana Budzak

The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation continues to document the stories of people who witnessed the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. The goal is to tell the whole world about the events in Donbass and the civilians whose lives they have changed forever.

Oksana Budzak is from the village of Trudovskoe, not far from Donetsk. During one of the shellings, a shell exploded near her house. Her son was seriously injured, the splinter stopped a few millimeters from the artery and almost cost him his life. The guy received a psychological trauma and it took a long time to restore the injured hand.

“Nearby there was shooting, but we could not even think that we would be affected. In 2014, in summer, there was the first shelling. It was scary, we did not yet understand where they were shooting – from us or towards us. In 2017, it was the first time in three years that my son and my husband were injured. The first and only time when the village got under fire, – Oksana told.

The feeling of fear did not leave the woman, not even for a second. However, at that moment she realized that the lives of her loved ones were at stake.

“I clearly understood that I should not go into hysterics. After all, I have two men I love, they are wounded, and I need to bandage them, I need to call an ambulance. The ambulance did not come until the shelling was over. It was the worst thing in life – waiting. When you cannot stop the blood and understand that you urgently need to go to the hospital,” – the woman recalls.

Later, doctors said that the shell fragment had stopped just two millimeters from the son’s carotid artery.

“My son was seriously injured. He had a surgery, the splinter was pulled out. As the doctor told us, it was two millimeters from the carotid artery. He would have died on the spot if the splinter had gone a little further. He was lucky to be alive,” says Oksana Budzak.

The woman says that in the most difficult moment the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation came to help the family.

“The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation helped us. The injuries of my son and husband happened on Friday, and on Saturday morning I received a call from the Foundation and an offer to help. At that time, the hospital helped with medications, some things we paid ourselves. But when the doctors said that we needed rehabilitation, we could not afford it, and I called the Foundation. They helped. We went for rehabilitation from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for two years in a row. Many thanks to them. Huge thanks!” – Oksana summed up.

The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s Museum of Civilian Voices is a worldwide project that plans to collect 100,000 stories of civilians who suffered as a result of the armed conflict in Donbass by 2025.

“We cannot open the museum in Donetsk, so we create it online. It will work as an online archive, online expositions, online and offline projects, and also as media. Rinat Akhmetov helped, is helping and will continue to help civilians in Donbass. In 2014, the Humanitarian Crisis Center was created, which provided unprecedented assistance and, in fact, saved millions of lives. Each of them has its own story behind. We want to create the world’s main archive of the Civilian stories,” says Natalya Yemchenko, member of the Supervisory Board of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.

To leave their story and contribute to memory keeping, residents of Donbass and IDPs just need to follow the link https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ru/my-story and fill out a short questionnaire or leave

their contact details for feedback. Also, Civilians of Donbass can contact the Foundation for free psychological help by calling 0800509001.

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