Ukrainian soldier has surgery to remove live grenade from inside of him

Doctors in Ukraine have removed a live grenade that was lodged inside a soldier.

The grenade, which “could have gone off at any moment,” was discovered just under the soldier’s heart.

The risky situation was handled by surgeons who were under the supervision of two sappers, to minimise the risk of a potential explosion.

Sappers are individuals who perform military engineering duties like preparing field defences and clearing landmines.

To prevent the detonation of the explosive, the procedure didn’t use electrocoagulation, a procedure where electrical currents are passed into an electrode to manage bleeding that happens in surgery.

Sign upto our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

According to a report in The Guardian, Anton Gerashchenko, the internal affairs ministerial adviser of Ukraine, believed that the high-stakes surgery would “go down in medical textbooks.”

The accomplishment was also shared on social media by Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence, Hanna Maliar, on 9 January.

She also shared a split-image of the soldier’s X-ray, which highlighted the grenade’s location in his chest as well the doctor appearing to hold the explosive after surgery.

“Military doctors conducted an operation to remove a VOG grenade, which did not break, from the body of the soldier,” Maliar wrote on Facebook.

She added: “The operation was carried out by one of the most experienced surgeons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Andrew Willow without electrocoagulation, as the grenade could detonate at any time.”

Since then, the soldier’s condition has been stable and he was sent for rehabilitation and recovery.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.