“The hardest part of the job is sorting out the wounded”: the story of a combat medic on pseudo-morphine

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Stepan with the call sign “Morphin” is a combat medic originally from Galicia. In 2020, he signed a contract with the National Guard – preparing to defend the state from an aggressor country.

The story of the soldier was told in the National Guard.

Stepan is from Ivano-Frankivsk, but has been living in Kharkiv since 2006. He worked as an emergency doctor – a traumatologist in hospitals of the city and region.

He says that during his life in Kharkiv, he began to communicate in Russian, because “that’s how the people around him spoke.” He admits that now he is ashamed of it.

Photo: NSU

“Now I am very ashamed of this, for some time I felt like a traitor to my parents and the country. From February 24, 2022, I speak exclusively Ukrainian. This is fundamental”– emphasizes the doctor.

When he signed the contract in 2020, he chose the nickname “Morphine” for himself, because it is the main component of powerful painkillers.

According to Stepan, a few months before the invasion, he understood that a full-scale war was inevitable, because the Russians were deploying field hospitals on the border with Ukraine.

While studying at the university, Stepan heard a story from a teacher of the military department about how, two months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he deployed field hospitals on the border of Tajikistan.

“Remember, our colonel said, every war starts with this. Therefore, when I saw in the news the information about the building of Russian field hospitals in Belarus and Russia, I understood that the invasion was inevitable and would happen soon. I prepared my family and acted accordingly. My family on time drove out, collected a set of necessary things and did not take them out of the car.” – remembers “Morphine”.

He says that in the first months, together with his units, he defended the Kharkiv airport. The airfield strip, which was blown up in time, did not allow the enemy to land airborne troops, so Stepan saw active combat operations already at the defense of Izyum, Pryshyb and Balaklea.

Raisin defense

“Morphine” has always provided medical care at the forefront. He says that foreign trainers were very surprised how it is possible to stabilize the wounded a kilometer from the enemy’s positions.

“They work strictly according to protocols. Vaughnand they didn’t understand why we can’t sometimes take out the wounded for a day, because the road is shot at by tanks and artillery”– recalls Morfin sadly.

He adds that near the front line they were forced to provide help in dugouts, because the stabilization point was as much as 15 km away. The road took 2-3 hours in normal weather, but was impassable in the rain.

Stepan on pseudo “Morphine”

“The most difficult thing in the work of a combat medic is to “sort” the wounded. Because you determine who will live. Under the conditions of normal, “protocol” work, you might have saved everyone.

But there is no time and resources, you understand that in a few hours, which is the minimum that separates the wounded from the hospital, the seriously wounded will die. Therefore, you have to choose those who can continue the fight now and those who have a chance to survive in the time you have, and which you don’t really have. Evacuation helicopters arrive only in Hollywood films. We drag by hand and in cars along the destroyed roads.” – concludes the military medic.

Read also: “There were five injuries, a fracture and a serious injury.” The story of a 19-year-old soldier of the National Guard about the battles in the East

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