Basically, my comrade and I were already ‘buried’: A Survival Handbook from the Front Lines

04 June 2024

When a person is “on the edge,” they are capable of seemingly incomprehensible actions that push the limits of human ability.

“Basically, my comrade and I were already ‘buried,’ considered dead. But he was found on the first night, and I was found only after two days. So, we died and came back to life. In this situation, there’s no point in complaining. I am happy as a clam because I survived,” said Dmytro Finashin (Finn), a soldier from the Special Purpose Battalion named after Hero of Ukraine Major General Serhiy Kulchytsky.

However, they say that in a critical situation, a person does not rise to the level of their expectations but falls to the level of their training. Thus, Finn’s will to live and skills helped him survive a situation that, at first glance, seemed impossible to escape.

Finn has been serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2015. Having fought in the war in eastern Ukraine, he participated in battles for the independence of the Ukrainian people during the first three months of the full-scale invasion until he was wounded during the evacuation of a fellow soldier. As a result, his left arm and a finger on his right hand were amputated.

Some time later, Dmytro was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star. Initially, Finn’s comrades applied for the award with the note “posthumously.”

Currently, Finn continues to serve in the army, working in analytics in unmanned aviation as an intelligence officer in the National Guard of Ukraine.

Dmytro told us about those two days he spent in the grey zone, searching for a way back, periodically losing consciousness from blood loss.

Additionally, during the conversation, we discussed the issue of hand prosthetics and the difficulties, and sometimes despair, that severely wounded Ukrainian soldiers face daily.

The climax occurred when, in one of the wheat fields in Donetsk, Finn and his comrade evacuated a wounded fellow soldier. Under heavy enemy artillery fire, the soldiers crawled, dragging the third man.

“The field was knee-high, and we had to crawl 120 meters. The bastards knew we were somewhere around there but didn’t know exactly where, so they just fired artillery in our direction.

First, my finger on my right hand was shattered; I wrapped it with a bandage, and we continued the evacuation. Then a shell hit my helmet; I moved to the side, and then my left arm’s bone was shattered, and a fragment went through my arm and torso. Since I already had a wound on the other arm, I couldn’t apply the tourniquet myself. By the time my comrade applied it, I had lost a lot of blood. I had an arterial bleed. I couldn’t walk anymore. They took off my helmet and body armor to make it easier to drag me.

I only had a knife in my pocket. I even gave my phone to my uninjured comrade—his call sign was Socrates. I told him my PIN code and asked him to call my family if he survived and tell them that I died and that I love and kiss them all. I really didn’t think I would survive.

But Socrates went ahead to find a way, and the bastards killed him. They took his radio and told our brigade, ‘Your Socrates is gone, and we finished off the rest of your wounded.’

Since there were more wounded than able-bodied among our brigade, they took all the wounded and retreated. While we retreated and evacuated the fighter, our brigade covered us for six hours. But ammo isn’t endless and tends to run out.

Later, my comrades from the brigade told me they tried to find the body using a drone. But they only saw the trail in the wheat field where we had crawled. But then the trail ended, and there was no body. Our soldiers thought the bastards had taken the bodies to their positions.

Meanwhile, the Russian soldiers also retreated because our brigade was shelling them. So, I was left alone in the grey zone.

I tried to head towards our positions by memory. But I ended up in a high, dense sunflower field. I realized that if I went in there, no one would ever find me. Only years later, they might identify me by my teeth. So, I stayed in one spot. That’s where another brigade’s soldiers found me.

The first night, I didn’t know where I was. When I figured it out, I stayed in a ravine because there was a puddle of water. It was basically mud. Due to the clay and grass, the water hadn’t dried up. So, I drank from there. My water bottle had run out by the morning of the first day before I was wounded.

There was no food, hence no energy. But I had to keep warm. At night, it was only 4 degrees Celsius. I couldn’t stand up because of the blood loss, so I crawled to keep warm, periodically losing consciousness.

My brain created hallucinations, like seeing a vehicle with our soldiers nearby. I tried to crawl to it, warmed up a bit, and then lost consciousness again.

Two days later, the 80th Brigade arrived in that area. They didn’t know the terrain and accidentally stumbled upon me, evacuated me to our positions, and reported it over the radio. My brigade arrived, and my comrades were shocked by what they saw. My arm had been with a tourniquet for two days, and it was so swollen and purple that my wristwatch was no longer visible. Normally, a tourniquet should not be used for more than six hours to avoid amputation.

My family was not informed. But my comrade’s wife was told he had died, even though he was found the first night. When he called her, she didn’t believe it was him and thought a Russian was calling.

My family didn’t know what to think. Usually, I would message them that I was okay. But this time, I wrote ‘I love you’ and disappeared for three days. Then neither I nor my friends answered the phone. Naturally, my family had doubts. But when they found me, I told them I was okay—they found me, but my arm was probably gone.

My family didn’t know what was wrong with me. No one said anything, so they thought I was paralyzed.

I thought about it, and it’s very scary—to become paralysed. When I was in intensive care, there was a 21-year-old guy next to me. A fragment hit him and went into his cervical spine. And that was it—he was paralysed. He understood everything and talked, but couldn’t do anything. His mother sat by him, and he just stared silently. He couldn’t even commit suicide.

That’s terrifying to me. It’s also terrifying to be left without both arms. You understand everything but can’t even care for yourself, even in the bathroom.

Prosthetic technology is primitive. Making it is easy, but the question is how to explain what and when to do to the prosthesis. The control means don’t work.

For example, I have the most modern prosthesis worth $61,000. It has myoelectric sensors that are supposed to read impulses when muscles contract. Since my amputation is high, I wear a carbon cap over my entire chest muscle and shoulder blade, lined with silicone. To give a command, I have to contract my chest muscle, and to close the hand, I have to contract the shoulder blade. Eventually, within 30 minutes, I sweat 100 buckets, and the prosthesis starts living its own life, closing chaotically, and sometimes reacting to heartbeats. It’s easier without it.

In ten years, they will learn to implant some chips. Then we can talk about normal prosthetic hand functionality.

This March, I was offered to become an advisor on prosthetics. At first, I thought it was a good idea. When I faced this problem, I had no information, and no one could advise me. There are many people, and they don’t have time to consult everyone. Among soldiers, I would have had a high level of trust.

When I came to the Ministry, they told me I needed to talk to a guy with high amputations of both arms. I realised I didn’t know what to tell him because I have one arm, and the prosthesis doesn’t help me at all.

Then I spoke with Vadym Sviridenko (Presidential Commissioner for Rehabilitation of Combatants), who has low amputations of both arms and legs. Even he said that when he went to that guy, he didn’t know what to say because two high amputations are even worse.”

Listening to Finn’s story, you involuntarily hold your breath from the incredible rescue when it seemed impossible. From the fact that there are many such stories with irreversible injuries, and unfortunately, not all end in rescue. You hold your breath from realising how much pain Russia has brought not only to millions of Ukrainians but also to many other nations around it. You involuntarily stop breathing, realising that there are things scarier than death, and every day, brave Ukrainian soldiers face this threat, continuing to fight despite everything.

The war will forever be etched in memory with bloody letters. No matter how people try to hide these memories in the “far corner,” they will still subconsciously appear in everyday life.

For example, Finn said that airplanes are a major trigger. Last spring, Russian fighter jets bombed Finn and his brigade every 30 minutes for three days straight.

“I was in Poland when the military command was changing. Many soldiers, equipment, and fighter jets were flying low in the sky. It was me and two other soldiers who had fought in this war. All three of us twisted like cats when we heard that sound. My brain understands that I’m in Poland, but subconsciously there’s only one association—with the war,” Finn recalled.

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