Unbreakable mom whose house was hit by a Russian missile
“Unbreakable mom”: Maryna is a 41-year-old mother of three girls from Kryvyi Rih. She and her husband work in a mine, so they are used to danger and difficulties. But neither Maryna, nor her husband, nor all the residents of the “stalinka” in Kryvyi Rih were prepared for what happened on the morning of December 16. A Russian missile hit their house.
Together with other women and children affected by the war, Maryna and her daughters underwent three weeks of psycho-emotional rehabilitation at the Unbreakable Mom project, a joint program of the Masha Foundation and the Saving Lives Humanitarian Project. There she told us her story.
“At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, we responded to every alarm. We were friends with our neighbors, a young family with a baby, and we went to the basement together. If I was sleeping after a night shift, my neighbor would come to wake me up when she heard the sirens, and we would go to the shelter together with the children. We also decided to evacuate to Poland together in early March last year. And six months later we returned to Kryvyi Rih with a difference of a month.”
“After returning, we relaxed, stopped going down to the basement. We thought: what could happen?”
“But it happened. In the morning of December 16. It was an ordinary morning, my husband had just returned from a night out. He went to wake up our middle daughter, 7-year-old Varya, for school, but the sirens started to sound. So the four of us (the eldest daughter lives separately) went to breakfast in our pajamas. Around 9 am, my husband went to bed. The younger daughter asked to be held by him, and together they left the kitchen. After 2-3 seconds, Varya said: “Mom, there’s an airplane in the sky.” I did not believe her. At that time, there was a loud bang, my daughter and I ran into the hallway, and then there was a terrible explosion. Everything around us began to collapse: walls were falling, metal-plastic windows were flying into the rooms like pieces of paper. A huge cloud of dust rose, and it started to stink of burning. I couldn’t see my husband or children, I couldn’t even see my hands. When the dust settled a little, I could see my husband: he was standing in the room, covering the child who was still in his arms. Centimeters away from them was the balcony door, which had been blown into the room. Everything was in glass.”
“When I turned the other way, I heard Varya screaming. She was in the middle of the rubble, her head covered in debris. The explosion caused the walls of the house to fall on top of each other like dominoes. The fall was stopped by a load-bearing wall. If not for it…”
“I had only one thought in my head: my child has to breathe. So I climbed into the rubble to clear her access to oxygen. Then my husband came running, gave me the younger 3-year-old child and continued to clear the rubble. Varya was conscious and kept asking for her favorite toy, a polar bear. The man was able to free her head, shoulders, and back, but the slabs were pinning her legs. By that time, rescuers had already arrived. They were on what used to be the roof, but they could not come down to us because the rubble could move under the weight and kill the child. I don’t know how my husband was able to free my daughter, where those superhuman strengths came from to move the blocks that were being lifted by the machinery. But he did.”
“When Varya was released, a fire started somewhere in the house. Black smoke poured into the apartment. There was nothing to breathe. We were climbing the fallen walls. It was December, and we were in shorts and T-shirts. The only thing I took from the apartment was a bag with documents, which was in the hallway just in case.”
“We were miraculously saved. Varya was kept in the intensive care unit for a day and in the hospital for another week to see if the effects of the strong compression would appear. My husband was cut by glass when he covered his younger child with his body. But we survived.”
“I tried to call our friends and neighbors, but it was all in vain. While Varya was in the intensive care unit, I was waiting in the waiting room for them to be brought in. The body of my friend-neighbor was found on the first floor, although they lived on the second. The floor had caved in under her. Their little child also died on the spot, and her husband died in the hospital.”
“Five people died on that terrible day”
“I blamed myself terribly for not going down to the basement when the alarm sounded. We should have gone to the shelter with our neighbors, like at the beginning of the war. We would have been scared, we would have had no place to live, but everyone would have been alive. The feeling of guilt was eating away at me, I started to be afraid of sirens, and forbade my children to be outside during the alarm. In the bomb shelter, I wanted to cry: children should not have to go through all this, should not grow up underground! It was only thanks to the psychologists of the “Unbreakable Mom” that I realized that I was not to blame. I realized that I had to keep living and believe in the best. My daughters calmed down in the camp and became more cheerful. Everything was good for us: the care of the staff, classes with psychologists, art therapy. Even the view of the mountains! We will return to Kryvyi Rih and live on. But every time there is a serious alarm, we will hide in a bomb shelter.”
About the project:
The “Unbreakable Mom” rehabilitation program is specially designed by specialists in psychology and post-traumatic syndromes for women and children affected by war. This is a 3-week offline camp where psychologists work with project participants. And then there is online support. The shift where our heroine underwent rehabilitation was organized by the Masha Foundation together with the Saving Lives Humanitarian Project.
Photo: Woman Magazine press service