The story of a soldier who started running again thanks to prosthetics

Photo: Nezlamni National Rehabilitation Center

Military Gennadiy Tamulevych, who after losing a limb dreamed of being able to run again, received a sports prosthesis and already ran his first three hundred meters.

The 25-year-old fighter hails from Luhansk region. He decided to become a professional soldier as a teenager: after the war in eastern Ukraine, Russian troops occupied his native Pervomaisk. So after school, the young man entered the military academy in Odesa, informs “Nezlamni” National Rehabilitation Center.

A full-scale war caught Gennady near Kiev. In the battles for the capital, he was the commander of a group that cannot be named for security reasons. When the enemy retreated from the capital, the officer’s unit was moved to Kharkiv. Then – to Zaporozhye, where the soldier was wounded in April 2022.

“That day, a group of our soldiers went to one of the settlements to make sure that there were no occupiers there. But when they got closer to the houses, they realized that they were already waiting for them. A shootout began. The fight is almost close.

At a distance of ten meters, Gennady also saw his opponent. He aimed at him with a machine gun. Only a moment – and the defender felt how the current hit his leg. But before grinding, he gathered his remaining forces, fired at the enemy and neutralized him.” – they say in the rehabilitation center.

The fighter recovered consciousness in a hospital in Zaporozhye. Doctors fought for his leg, but in the end the limb had to be amputated: two enemy bullets simply crushed his knee joint and thigh.

Subsequently, Gennadiy Tamulevych was treated in Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Lviv and in Germany, where he was fitted with the first prosthesis.

“He returned to Ukraine with it, because he decided: he will fight the enemy to the end, even if not on the front line. The defender did not give up on his dream – to run again, albeit on an artificial limb. After all, before the injury, he ran often and a lot.” – doctors say.

In Lviv, prosthetists made another individual stump receiver for him, to which a special active knee and running foot were attached. Thanks to this, the officer for the first time in a year and a half, he was able to run three hundred meters.

“It was not easy. You have to get used to it. But the beginning has been made. Dreams Come True”, – says the soldier.

We will remind, in Vinnytsia conducted unique for Ukraine prosthetics: the patient will be able to walk in six weeks.