Photo At the National Rehabilitation Center “Indestructible” in Lviv, the lower jaw of a Ukrainian military man, whose half of his face was torn apart by an enemy shell, was reconstructed.
In this case, doctors used the defender’s tibia. The Indestructible Center reported this on Facebook. (UNBROKEN), reports Ukrinform.
«For the first time, maxillofacial surgeons of the UNBROKEN Center independently – without the help of foreign colleagues – performed a complex microsurgical operation to reconstruct the lower jaw. The defender, who went to the front as soon as he became an adult, waited almost two years for this operation,” the message says.
It is noted that 25-year-old Andrey Grushko is from the village of Chkalovo, Kherson region. The guy is a tractor driver by profession, but he has never worked in this profession for a day. As soon as he turned 18, Andrei decided to join the army. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion he served in the Donetsk region. There, on March 12, 2022, a fragment of a Russian shell crushed a young warrior’s jaw and nearly took his life. /wp-content/uploads/2024/02/04e1e918a66529afb7feb40d1613917b.jpg” alt=”Lviv surgeons formed a military lower jaw from the tibia” />
“It was an ordinary day at the front. We held our positions and watched the enemy. When it arrived, I was looking through binoculars. The blast wave stunned me. “I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t orient myself in space, I didn’t even understand what happened,” Andrey shares the circumstances of his injury.
A piece of ammunition literally tore half of his face off. The brothers were able to stop the massive bleeding and evacuate the seriously wounded warrior.
Then Andrey was treated for almost two years in various medical institutions in Ukraine. To the center “Indestructible” The defender was admitted for surgery to reconstruct the lower jaw. Due to the absence of part of the bone and teeth, the young man could not eat normally all this time: chew and eat solid food. To fix this, surgeons inserted a titanium implant into the defender’s jaw. However, unfortunately, it did not take root.
There is one more way to help the patient – to replace the missing fragment with his own bone. This is one of the most difficult operations in maxillofacial surgery. After all, in order for the bone to take root, it is necessary to connect with jewelry many small vessels – only as thick as a human hair.
“Specialists, together with American colleagues of the FACE to FACE mission, have successfully performed such microsurgical interventions more than once. So, at the end of last fall, together they operated on more than ten military personnel with similar injuries. The experience gained now allows our maxillofacial surgeons to independently – without the help of foreign specialists – undertake such a complex reconstructive operation. Andrey is the first patient, the medical institution said.
This complex microsurgical operation lasted 14 hours.
Now the bone has taken root. Just two weeks after the restoration of his face, Andrei was able to go to his wife and little son.
As Ukrinform reported, in December at the National Rehabilitation Center “Indestructible” American and Ukrainian reconstructive surgeons performed three extremely complex operations per day – they transplanted bone, tissue and blood vessels from the leg to the face of military personnel with mine explosion injuries.
Photo: UNBROKEN Ukraine
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