Sofia, or Sonya, is 13 years old. Until February 24, she lived a happy life. Sonya was in 7th grade, she loved anatomy and drawing, and learned to play the guitar. The girl and her family had been living in the Mykolaiv region.

On March 5, Russian soldiers shelled her village. At this time, Sonya and her mother were tapping windows to protect themselves from the shock wave after the explosion. Sonya doesn’t really remember how it all happened. She said she heard the whistle of a rocket, and then her mother shouted: “Sonya, run!” The girl managed to take three steps away from the window when a piece of metal hit her in the temple. She fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

The girl’s mother, Lyudmyla, also had her face injured by the shell – the shrapnel hit a vessel near her nose. The woman’s face was covered in blood. The Russian rocket hit the family’s house. Luydmyla says that the roof above their kitchen now has a hall through which you can see the sky.

The girl was taken to the local hospital in Mykolaiv. Despite the constant shelling, the local doctors performed surgery on Sonya but were unable to retrieve the shrapnel. For some time, Sonya was put into a medicated deep sleep. The doctors fought for her life every day. Sonya’s mother was even afraid to ask about the child’s chances of survival. For almost four weeks, Sonya lived with a metal fragment in her head because it was very dangerous to get it out. The child’s right limbs were hardly working. All this time she was suffering from a headache.

On March 29, the girl and her mother were taken to Ohmatdyt to remove the fragment that had already caused inflammation. The shrapnel was stuck deeply in the girl’s head: it was in the middle between the hemispheres of the brain. Our doctors performed trepanation of the skull and removed the fragment with the help of an ultramodern ultrasound. The metal fragment was close to a huge vessel in the child’s brain. But the surgery went well.

The girl’s mother says that Sonya was looking forward to the surgery so that “her head would finally stop hurting”. When the girl regained consciousness after the surgery, she immediately thanked the doctors. Now, Sofia continues her treatment in Ohmatdyt. She is going through rehabilitation and slowly learning to use her right hand again – she wants to get back to her favorite hobby – drawing. Sofia dreams of spending the summer in her native village in the Mykolaiv region swimming in a pond, catching snakes, and playing the guitar. The girl cherishes a dream: she wants to play a black seven-string guitar after the victory.

Photos and videos.