Berättelse 3
Oleh and Natalia
- Veteran of the 80th Separate Territorial Defense Battalion
- Now continue his recovery in Ukraine
Oleh was born and raised in Chortkiv, where he followed his father onto the railways. For thirty-eight years, he worked as a locomotive engineer — a steady life, a steady trade.
He was already retired when Russia’s full-scale invasion began. In the first days of the war, he went to the front as a volunteer. He lost both legs. A brother-in-arms saved his life by applying tourniquets on the ground.
His recovery has been long. Oleh spent six months in the United States learning to walk on prosthetics, followed by further rehabilitation in Ukraine.
Throughout this journey, his wife Natalia has been by his side and became his constant support — helping him through recovery and adapting to a new reality. They have been married for 36 years and have two children together.
Oleh and Natalia joined the Hug for Heroes program together. Their story reflects something essential: recovery is not an individual process. It is shared — between partners, within families, and over time, as people rebuild their lives after trauma.
