20.05.2009 19:05 | The war in August, 2008. The feats of medics

Alla Gabaraeva, the resuscitation specialist

On August, 5 I left my house for the last time (the house was burned down later) and I’ve been in the hospital till the 15-th of August. We had the reinforcement of brigades. We were notified about such a hard situation.

At night of August, 7 nobody expected such heavy bombardment would begin. We were asked to go down in a cellar so that to take cover. We had to take there our patients who were in the hospital at that moment. We got down the beds and the patients from all the floors. One of the patients was very bad and died right at that moment. We could not put his body with the others and during the war it had been on the third floor.

We had no the unique solution to equip the basement for the operating rooms, but later Vadik Medoev, Kostya Chibirov, Kostya Servetnik, Azamat Tedeev, the young doctors who arrived to the city, decided that we had to get down the surgical tables, surgical armaments, anesthesia apparatus and the medicines to the cellar, where we could render aid. We had to do it until the wounded people begin to enter the hospital. Besides the cellar where were also the surgical tables on the ground floor so that we could give first aid. In case the patient was in need of the surgery we got him down to the cellar. This way we organized our work and we worked very well. The other services` work was going well too. But we had difficulties with the roentgen because our generator did not cope with it, though it worked all that time continuously. Our surgeons had to work as the roentgen by themselves.

When the wounded men started to enter the hospital, it became very difficult as we felt the shortage of people. It turned out so that they brought five-six patients at once. The guys usually brought them. I do not know how they were not afraid but they carried them from the different areas of the city, where the street fights were, the shells exploded and it was very dangerous. When they saw that our work was organized and we render aid, they began to take the patients to the hospital and they knew we would do our best for them.

We made an examination. If someone was in need of anaesthetization and bandaging we did it immediately. If the operation was necessary we got the patient down to the cellar. The patients entered one by one and our work was also proceeding as the conveyor system. There were people who were responsible for bandaging, there were people who were responsible for tetanus anatoxin. When the operation was completed, there were girls who were responsible for blood transfusion, injections of antibiotics, etc. It was good that on the 7-th of August we filled all available vessels with water. The water came with interruptions and they brought it in the tanks.

The water was on the top floors and we had to go upstairs and take the water down in the buckets, bottles and every possible vessel. We ran risks very much because the hospital was under heavy shelling. But all the same there wasn’t enough water to wash the surgical instruments and to sterilize them in special devices. Therefore we washed the instruments with some water, filled them with spirit and set fire. The spirit burnt out and this way they were sterilized. So we used old-time field hospital’s methods. Despite of it our patients had no any complications. Many guys went to Moscow, Vladikavkaz, other cities later and they did without surgical operations there.

Certainly, such hard work affected us. But, on the other hand, the work mobilized everybody and there was any energy, in spite of the fact we ate almost nothing. The food got stuck in our throats and we had no time to eat. Hunger faints were among the wounded guys only. We made them novocaine injections, which decompressed them, they were also hungry and all these facts made themselves felt.