Walter Finch
A Costa del Sol-based Ukrainian man whose left leg was blown off defending his country is to have it reconstructed in a Malaga hospital.
Last May, Oleg Kharkevych, known as Alex, 40, received a letter from the Ukrainian authorities and left his mother, Olga, 63, son, and older brother behind and headed back to his homeland for military action.
But a few days ago, while serving on the frontline in the Donetsk region, Alex stepped on a landmine, which blew his left leg apart.
He was transferred to the military hospital in Lviv, but they did not have the means to carry out such a surgery.
Although Alex could have been moved to a hospital in Poland, his mother contacted Vicente de la Varga, a specialist in sports traumatology and regenerative medicine, and director of the CAMDE trauma clinic where she had been a patient.
De la Varga began to pull strings to get the injured man transferred to Malaga, which is expected to happen on today, Friday, December 9.
De la Varga told Diario Sur: “I decided to call on my friends in sport. I spoke to my colleague Juan Carlos Pérez-Frías, head of the medical services at Malaga football club, and with the legal administrator of the Blue and Whites’ club, José María Muñoz.
“He told me, without yet knowing how it was going to be organised or what it was going to cost, that I could count on them for whatever was needed.
“Antonio Jesús López Nieto, president of Unicaja, told me exactly the same thing.”
The Andalusian junta, which has a mandate to receive and treat any refugee coming from Ukraine, agreed to provide treatment at the orthopaedic surgery and traumatology department of the Virgen de la Victoria Hospital.
The surgery will be performed in the osteosynthesis and reconstructive surgery unit, headed by specialists Alfonso Queipo de Llano and Borja Delgado.
