Illustration: #MashaFoya
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"Who but me?," Serhiy, a 29-year-old opera singer and musician, set out with such thoughts from Poltava to Kharkiv and Okhtyrka every day to evacuate residents of dangerous areas. The man managed to save about 50 people in total, until his car was fired upon by the Russian saboteurs near Saltivka, a residential area in Kharkiv, which is constantly under enemy fire.
With Serhiy, four other people and two cats were in the car at that time, but only the driver was injured. Bullets hit his legs, liver, lungs, and fingers. Serhiy could have died quickly from blood loss, but on this very day, he evacuated the medics: the rehabilitation doctor promptly got her bearings and closed the wound in the back with her palm. Somehow, Serhiy managed to get to the Ukrainian checkpoint, where the military provided him first aid and took him to the hospital in seven minutes. Even the slightest delay in time—and the man would go into hemorrhagic shock from blood loss, and there was a high probability of a coma.
Ukrainian doctors were with Serhiy around the clock while he was in critical condition in the intensive care unit for 16 days. After the condition somewhat normalized, the man was sent to Germany for treatment.
Serhiy is sure that despite all the consequences, the trips were important: some of the evacuated people had a Russian missile fly into their house a few days after the evacuation. Despite the fear, volunteers simply can’t stand aside.