Rescuers battled for nine hours in temperatures approaching minus 25 degrees Celsius to save this miner who was buried under rubble when a building collapsed, and a doctor had to amputate both his legs at the scene before he could be taken to hospital.
The doctor said that he worked with a homemade knife and without anaesthesia to remove the man’s legs, with the constant threat that the rest of the 13-storey structure above him would collapse on top of his unnamed 46-year-old patient, and himself.
The incident took place in the city of Ak-Dovurak, which is located in Tuva Republic, in southern Siberia, in south-central Russia on 6th December at around 4.15pm, when an unused building, which was being dismantled at the Tuvaasbest mining and processing plant, collapsed.
Two workers were trapped under the rubble in the incident. Rescuers retrieved one of them dead from the rubble in the incident, which unfolded in temperatures reaching minus 25 degrees Celsius, according to local media reports.
The rescuers then worked hard to remove the rubble and managed to rescue the second worker after nine hours of working in the blistering cold, thankfully with various heat guns and other heating devices to make it possible for them to complete their mission.
The man’s legs were trapped by debris, and a doctor who was called to the scene had no choice but to amputate both of the man’s legs.
The man, who has not been named, can then be seen being lifted into a waiting ambulance without his legs.
The doctor who amputated both of his legs has been named in local media reports as Ergil Chadamba. He is said to have performed the operation using a normal knife and without anaesthesia, with the rest of the structure threatening to collapse on top of him “at any moment”.
The doctor explained that they were lacking in equipment and had made their way to the trapped man as best they could, often cutting into cement using angle grinders and other handheld tools, eventually reaching the man, whom they could hear shouting.
Dr Chadamba, who did not even wear a helmet because it “only got in the way”, crawled to his patient despite the risks and immediately noticed that the only way to save him was to amputate both his legs at the knees.
Dr Chadamba was impressed that the man was able to withstand so much. The doctor said that the patient was suffering from frostbite to his hands and he had torn the skin of his fingers off from trying to claw his way out of his predicament.
The doctor noted that there were bloody scratch marks on surfaces near the patient.
The man was reportedly confused and disoriented and the doctor knew that he had to act quickly. Without any of the proper tools, a rescuer handed him his knife. It was an ordinary knife, homemade, with a wooden handle, but very sharp, the doctor said.
The doctor performed the double amputation and said that he applied tourniquets to the man’s wounds to avoid him bleeding out. After the double amputation was performed, the man was taken to an ambulance, as can be seen in this footage.
The miner, who underwent secondary operations once in hospital, is reportedly currently in intensive care, on a ventilator, fighting for his life.
