Montreal Gazette
Wounded by a grenade, 11-year-old Mykola finds hope at Montreal’s Shriners Hospital
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/wounded-by-a-grenade-11-year-old-mykola-finds-hope-at-montreals-shriners-hospital
March 17, 2016
Article by: Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Special to the Montreal Gazette

 

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An 11-year-old boy who lost his legs and an arm in Eastern Ukraine will soon walk again in Montreal. When he does, it will be because of the dedicated Canadian volunteers and doctors who insisted his life should not be defined by the blind cruelty of a grenade.

One day in late February, Mykola Nyzhnykovskyi visited the Shriners Hospital to see his physiotherapist Rochelle Rein. He arrived in a wheelchair with rims stencilled with fireballs. When his mother, Alla, was not pushing him, he got along just fine propelling himself with his one full arm, pushing one wheel at a time, two rotations each, first on the left, then reaching over to the right, veering slightly one way, then the other, like a lone paddler in a canoe.

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Mykola can now stand unassisted. Thankfully, his injuries have not diminished in him the singular talent of young males for converting achievement into bravado. “Hey, Mom,” he chirps, “I think I’m taller than you.”

Walking independently will take months of more work, a process that will require preternatural patience for a boy who has known the whoosh of running.

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