Kyiv was burning as Dr. Borys Todurov sped through the city in an ambulance, undeterred by the deep thuds of explosions and the terrifying sounds of Russian drones flying overhead.
He was determined to deliver his precious cargo: a human heart.
Todurov’s patient – a child – was seriously ill in a hospital. He had hours to act.
The child has been living with a heart disease for several years, but her condition deteriorated earlier this week and Todurov knew a new heart was her only chance.
So when one became available from a child donor on the opposite side of the city, he didn’t wait for the Russians to stop attacking.
Russia has ramped up its aerial attacks against Ukraine in recent weeks. It fired more than 400 drones and 18 missiles, including eight ballistic and six cruise missiles overnight into Thursday.
As the Ukrainian authorities called on people to hide in bomb shelters and basements, Todurov and his staff made the 10-mile drive from the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in western Kyiv to the city’s Heart Institute on the eastern bank of the river while missiles and drones were flying around.
While the Ukrainian Air Force managed to shoot down or disable the vast majority of the drones and missiles, two people were killed and dozens more injured in the attack on Thursday.
‘The heart is working’
Thursday’s mass attack on Kyiv was just the latest in a deadly string of Russian assaults. Just the day before, Moscow launched more than 700 drones – a new record – against Ukraine on a single night.
Todurov, the director of the Heart Institute, and his team worked non-stop throughout the two nights of attacks.
After performing a heart surgery at the institute on Wednesday, he traveled across the city to Okhmatdyt where he removed the heart from the body of the donor.
He then personally escorted the organ across the city.
Crossing the Dnipro by a bridge is extremely dangerous during an attack on Kyiv, because vehicles are exposed and Ukrainian air defences target Russian drones and missiles when they are above the river to minimise the impact from falling debris.
A video taken during the frantic drive shows a large fire burning near the road as Todurov drives on. “We’re carrying a heart,” he says calmly.
The Russian attack on the capital was still underway when Todurov got into the operating theater at the Heart Institute, heading a large medical team and transplanting the heart into the body of his patient.
In a stunning moment captured on camera and shared with CNN, the new heart is seen beating inside the patient’s chest, just hours after it was driven through Kyiv as Russian drones and missiles rained down on the city.
“The heart is working, and the pressure is stable. We hope that … (the patient) will recover and live a long and full life,” the doctor said.
The Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Centre said in a statement that the donor was a four-year-old girl who was declared brain-dead by a medical council after suffering serious injuries.
The girl’s mother, herself a medical worker, agreed to have her daughter’s organs donated.
And so, just as Todurov was transplanting the girl’s heart into his patient’s body at the Heart Institute, her kidneys were being transplanted to a 14-year-old boy and her liver to a 16-year-old girl, the center said. The two other patients were at the Okhmatdyt hospital, so no transport was required to get the organs to them.
The coordination center said that two of the three recipients were in critical condition and had they not received the transplants, they would have just days or weeks to live.
“May the little donor rest in peace. Our condolences to her family and gratitude for their difficult but important decision,” the center said.
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