Doctors from Canada, the US and Ukraine restored the face of 21-year-old soldier Roman as part of the Face the Future Ukraine mission.
The guy joined the army at the age of 18 and celebrated his 19th birthday in Bakhmut. He was injured during the fighting in the Kursk region. He says that four air bombs exploded near his position, his group was under the rubble, and one of his comrades was miraculously thrown out of his house by a shock wave, so he was able to call for help. Roman had 20 shrapnel wounds, shrapnel in his head that shattered the bones of his forehead but miraculously did not hit his brain. After the evacuation, he had to undergo surgeries on his head and pelvis and spend three months without movement until the bones fused back together. Due to the debris that destroyed the frontal bones, the injury on his head did not heal for a long time, the brain was no longer protected by the bones, and a large deflection formed in their place.
An international team of doctors from the Face the Future Ukraine reconstruction mission took on the reconstruction of Roman’s forehead. The doctors performed surgery and installed a titanium implant in the guy’s forehead, which replaced the bones of his forehead.
‘We performed the surgery and installed a customised titanium implant in place of the destroyed frontal bones, which protected the boy’s brain from damage and levelled his forehead. In addition to the implant, we transplanted connective tissue to prevent the titanium from damaging the skin. The surgery lasted four hours and helped protect the brain from infections in the nose and sinuses,’ says Natalia Biskup, a US surgeon of Ukrainian descent who has operated on wounded in Ukraine for the third time.
In addition to Roman, who became the youngest patient of the mission, 25 other patients with facial injuries were operated on: nose reconstruction, installation of individual implants to replace the destroyed bones, preparation of the eye orbits for prosthetics, and jaw reconstruction. In total, the doctors performed 83 surgical interventions. The next mission will take place in autumn.
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