“They took shrapnel out of my heart”

Serhiy Melnyk took a small rusty piece from his pocket and wrapped it neatly on paper.

He lifted it up. The Ukrainian soldier said quietly: “This made my kidney pass by and pierce my lungs and my heart.”

Traces of dry blood can still be seen in the shrapnel of Russian drone while fighting in eastern Russia in eastern Ukraine.

“At first I didn’t even realize what it was – I thought my body wasn’t breathing enough,” he said. “They had to extract shrapnel from my heart.”

With the rise of Ukrainian drone wars, these injuries became increasingly common. Drones often carry weapons and materials that break up and cause more complex shrapnel wounds.

According to Ukrainian military medical staff, shrapnel wounds now account for 80% of battlefield trauma.

Untreated Serhiy’s injury would be fatal.

He reflected, “The fragments are as sharp as blades.

But it’s not only saving his luck, it’s a new medical technology. Magnetic extractor.

Cardivascular surgeon Serhiy Maksymenko shows a lens of metal fragments trapped in Serhiy’s beating heart, which is then delicately cleared with a device with a thin magnet pointed tip.

“You don’t have to do a lot of cuts in the heart,” explains Dr. Maksymenko. “I just make a small cut, insert the magnet, and pull the shrapnel out.”

In just one year, Dr. Maksymenko’s team performed more than 70 successful cardiac operations through the device, which changed the face of frontline drugs in Ukraine.

The development of these extractors is emphasized by medical staff on the frontline, and the urgent need for a safe, fast, minimally invasive approach to eliminating shrapnel.

Oleh Bykov, who once worked as a lawyer, promoted this development. He has been volunteering since 2014. He met medical staff on the front line and created a magnetic extractor from his conversation.

This concept is not new. Magnets were used to remove wound metal from the Crimean War in the 1850s. But Oleh’s team modernized the method, creating flexible models for abdominal surgery, subtle working miniature extractors and high-strength tools for bones.

The operation becomes more precise and less invasive. Magnets can run along the wound surface to pull out the debris. The surgeon then makes a small incision and removes the debris.

Oleh holds a slender pen-shaped tool and shows its power by raising the sledgehammer with a magnetic tip.

His work has been praised by other war doctors, including David Nott, a war zone veteran around the world.

“In the war, things have developed, things that have never been thought of in civilian lives,” he said.

The broken wounds increased due to the change in the face of the war, and because it took them a long time to discover that he thought the device might be a game-changer.

He said looking for shrapnel in patients is like “finding a needle in a haystack” – not always successful and delays treatment for other casualties.

Manually searching for debris can be dangerous and requires larger incisions, which can lead to more bleeding – “So it’s clever to find them with just using magnets.”

The original field tools are now available in Ukraine, distributing 3,000 vehicles to hospitals and frontline medical staff, such as Andriy Alban, who said he has relied on the device.

He often works in a fire, in a trenches or a temporary outdoor clinic, sometimes without local anesthesia.

“My job is to save lives – bandage wounds and evacuate soldiers,” he said.

The magnetic extractor is not officially certified.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Health said that medical equipment must fully comply with technical regulations. However, in special cases, such as martial law or emergency, uncertified equipment is allowed to meet the needs of military and security forces.

Planner Oleh explained that at the peak of the war, there was no time for the traditional Chinese tape festival. “These devices can save lives. If someone thinks my actions are a crime, I will be held responsible. If I want to do so, I’m even ready to go to jail. However, all doctors using these devices should be imprisoned, too,” he added jokingly.

David Nott agrees that certification is not a top priority at the moment and believes the device may be helpful in other war zones such as Gaza.

“In war, it’s not really necessary. You only do things that are important to save lives.”

Back in Lviv, Serhiy’s wife Yulia is just grateful for her husband’s survival of the injury.

She said in tears: “I just want to praise those who invented this extractor.” “Thanks them, my husband is still alive.”

Other reports by Jasmin Dyer and Kevin McGregor.