A young boy without a leg and an arm sets a Ukrainian record

The country learned about Mykola from the village of Mykilske, near Mariupol, five years ago. Kolia, his younger brother Daniil and two friends found a shell from a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher at a firing range. They brought it home. Playing with an explosive object led to tragedy. The shell detonated. Mykola’s brother died, and he himself lost an arm and both legs.

The other boys received severe shrapnel wounds. Kolia suffered the most. Brain contusion, penetrating wound to the left eye, injury to the jaw. And military surgeons had to amputate his right forearm and both legs. Ahead were long months in hospitals, more than 30 surgeries and a year of rehabilitation in Canada. After the tragedy, the boy wrote a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The official was struck by the Ukrainian teenager’s story and invited Mykola to Canada. The boy spent there almost a year recovering from the trauma.

Kolia’s chance of survival was one in a hundred. At that time, no one could have imagined that the boy, having lost three limbs, would be able to swim. Not to mention records. In Kyiv, Kolia swam across the Dnieper. It took him 13 minutes and 45 seconds to cover the distance of 486 meters. Now his name is inscribed in the book of the National Register of Records of Ukraine

Kolia has been training for three and a half years. In December 2016, he earned his first medal: he won a swimming competition among children with disabilities in Zaporizhzhia. The family moved here after the tragedy: after providing first aid on the spot, the boy was taken to the Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital.

For more than a year Kolia is living in Kyiv, in an apartment of a businessmen and sponsor coming from Makiivka Tymofii Nahornyi. In fact, he is the boy’s custodian and helped him to discover his abilities.

– During the quarantine there were almost no trainings. Instead, I was able to spend more time on studies. Next year I want to become a programmer and learn 3D modelling, – says Kolia.

He like geography. The boy dreams of flying to warm countries and islands.

For Kolia swimming is first of all rehabilitation. And now he is on the stage when physical loads are on land and trainings are in water. In the long term, Kolia can be a member of the Paralympic team of Ukraine.

Mykola was recommended swimming by the Canadian physicians. In the Specialized Clinic Shriners in Montreal, Kolia had many operations on his stumps, he had donor cornea on his traumatized eye and that helped to return sight to him.

The sum was collected by the whole country and as a result the boy was operated by the Canadian surgeons. Specialists closed a hole in the child’s frontal bone with a titanium plate, corrected a scar that runs through the entire forehead, cut rough keloid scars on the cheek and chin by grafting skin from the thigh.

Kolia spent a lot of time in gym, on a treadmill and in the swimming pool. The boy also visited the meeting room of the local parliament. When Kolia was introduced, the Canadian parliamentarians stood up and greeted him with applause. A few months later, he met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to whom he wrote a letter.

– I liked Canada. People there are open, cheerful and active. But the main is everything there is adopted for people with disability. In Kyiv, unfortunately, there are too few ramps, – he regrets.

In Tulles Center Kolia has had two  lower limbs prostheses and right hand prosthesis fixed. Kolia worked on rehabilitation very hard and we are very glad meeting him.