Recently the People’s Project volunteer center has announced their aim to continue work on «The Victors» project that had been completed earlier. Consequently, all the preliminary work formed only the first stage during which we raised funds and paid for manufacturing of a sports prosthesis for Mykola Poltorak, the ATO hero who had struck a mine and lost his leg. For today, all the money collected within the first stage, has been allotted for this purpose, and the work on the prosthesis is going on.
So far, Mykola is using his old prosthesis. But the situation will change for the better soon
Today we are planning certain further steps: we have re-formatted the project a bit and now starting to work on fulfillment of another participant’s aspirations. To describe him we can simply admit that Fisher is incredible. He looks like a bit of hardened armor rather than an ordinary human. Kostyantyn Fisher is an ATO veteran who went through the hottest spots of the first year of war. He worked as a sniper and a scout, and… sorry we cannot disclose the rest as it is a military secret.
“If I could change anything in my life, I would join the ATO again, because my friends, my comrades who always accompanied me in my life, died in this war. And the news about their death, very disturbing reports from the front as well as the information on moving of the military equipment towards my friends’ places of disposition, – all these things made me feel so worried that to calm down this distress I decided to join Ukraine’s Armed Forces as a volunteer”, – Kostyantyn recollects his then attitude. After a year of work at the very edge of fighting, during a night-time reconnaissance mission Kostyantyn and his group had been ambushed. The enemy opened fire from a heavy caliber. One of the bullets hit the fighter’s knee having severely damaged the arteries. It was his comrade that saved Kostyantyn’s life: he drawn the wounded from under the fire and pulled him for about a kilometer on his shoulders, until they reached our positions. Kostyantyn nearly bled to death then – later it came out the blood loss made over three liters. In a hospital doctors stabilized Kostyantyn’s condition, then in a complex surgery amputated his leg since the bullet had almost torn it off near the knee; eventually, medics were just fighting for his life for quite a long period of time.
Now Kostyantyn has completely recovered, undergone a rehabilitation course and is now enjoying a full life. The man’s aspiration is to return to active training in oriental martial arts as he devoted twenty years of his career to one of the toughest styles in sparring, Kyokushin karate. Kostyantyn was born in a small village, so he had not too many options to choose from: he might either follow his parents’ path who were in farming, or smith his own fortune. Kostyantyn chose the second option because when a teenager he got attracted to karate: first he joined a martial arts section and later devoted himself to improvement of his skills. “Actually, I have been training all my life“, – admits the man. So the consequences of the injury deprived him of his whole lifetime’s favored activity.
Today the man is engaged in active training; he even participated in the ATO veterans’ competition. But it will come to his complete return to sports only when Kostyantyn has a special sporting prosthesis. We believe that together we can help as the man is planning to give training courses to generously share his priceless practical skills with other veterans as well as with enthusiastic youth.
“I have a favourite expression that has been always accompanying me in my life: let free Ukraine live long and flourish. Let the Ukrainians live healthily and happily on their own land forever”, – this was the motto Kostyantyn went to war with, to defend both his own and our families. The man left his two kids at home, and the third son was born while his father was on a military service. So he had no opportunity to see his newborn child for a while: the father got his first leave only in six months after his baby’s birth. “It was a fairly emotional meeting: I got my son and my wife into my arms and held them tight dancing around the room and kissing them lovingly,” – Kostyantyn’s voice is trembling traitorously even today when he recollects that happy moment.
Today he is putting the same slogan into practice trying to fulfill his small aspiration to his countrymen’s benefit. To remove all limitations in Kostyantyn’ way, we start the second stage of crowdfunding campaign within «The Victors» project. At this stage, the required sum amounts to 308 000 UAH. For this money prosthetics specialists will manufacture for Kostyantyn a special orthopedic hip prosthesis under the German brand Otto Bock. The prosthesis will include a naturally shaped casing that fits Kostyantyn’s leg perfectly, a convenient sporting foot and a computerized knee juncture both joining the parts together and allowing to operate the prosthesis under various types of dynamic workload. Obviously, this is not a new living leg, still it is its nearest replica.
So we are asking for your help. Concord and compassion as well as ability of being a shoulder in due time have always been Ukrainians’ most prominent virtues. For centuries we have been supportive to one another and perhaps thanks to this we still exist as an amazing, free and independent, country. For each of us, Kostyantyn’s case makes the best chance to prove our empathy. The man risked with his life and lost his health for us to be able to embrace our kids and forget about the terror of war. Let each of us make a small contribution to help him fulfill the aspiration of his whole life.
